[See  p.  154 

PETER'S  HAND  SOUGHT  HERS,  AND  ALL  HER  WOMAN'S  FEAR  OF 
THE  VAGUE  TERRORS  OF  THE  DREADFUL  NIGHT  SPOKE 

IN    HER    ANSWERING    PRESSURE 


JUDITH 
OF  THE  PLAINS 


MARIE    MANNING 


HARPER  6-  BROTHERS  PUBLISHERS 
NEW  YORK  AND  LONDON 


COPYRIGHT.    1903.    BY    HARPER    &    BROTHERS 


PRINTED   IN    THE    UNITED   STATES   OF   AMERICA 
L-0 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I.  "TOWN"      ............  i 

II.  THE  ENCOUNTER       .........  15 

III.  LEANDER  AND  His  LADY  .......  33 

IV.  JUDITH,  THE  POSTMISTRESS    ......  43 

V.  THE  TRAIL  OF  SENTIMENT     .     .....  59 

VI.  A  DAUGHTER  OF  THE  DESERT    .....  74 

VII.  CHUGG  TAKES  THE  RIBBONS       .....  93 

VIII.  THE  RODNEYS  AT  HOME    .......  104 

IX.  MRS.  YELLETT  AND  HER  "GOV'MENT"    .     .  127 

X.  ON  HORSE-THIEF  TRAIL    .......  141 

XI.  THE  CABIN  IN  THE  VALLEY  ......  iS4 

XII.  THE  ROUND-UP    ..........  J72 

XIII.  MARY'S  FIRST  DAY  IN  CAMP      .....  193 

XIV.  JUDITH  ADJUSTS  THE  SITUATION      .     .     .     .  211 

XV.  THE  WOLF-HUNT       .........  227 

XVI.  IN  THE  LAND  OF  THE  RED  SILENCE   .     .     .  249 

XVII.  MRS.   YELLETT    CONTENDS  WITH  A  CLOUD 

BURST   ............  259 

XVIII.  FORESHADOWED     ..........  274 

XIX.  "ROCKED  BY  A  HEMPEN  STRING".     .     .     .  296 

XX.  THE  BALL                                                  .     -     •  3°4 


M18921 


JUDITH  OF  THE  PLAINS 


JUDITH  OF  THE  PLAINS 


"TOWN" 

IT  was  June,  and  a  little  past  sunrise,  but  there 
was  no  hint  of  early  summer  freshness  in  the 
noxious  air  of  the  sleeping-car  as  it  toiled  like  a  snail 
over  the  infinity  of  prairie.  From  behind  the  green- 
striped  curtains  of  the  berths,  now  the  sound  of 
restless  turning  and  now  a  long-drawn  sigh  signified 
the  uneasy  slumber  due  to  stifling  air  and  discomfort. 
The  only  passenger  stirring  was  a  girl  whose  youth 
drooped  under  the  unfavorable  influences  of  foul 
air,  fatigue,  and  a  strained  anxiety  to  come  to  the 
end  of  this  fateful  journey.  She  had  been  up  while 
it  was  yet  dark,  and  her  hand  -  luggage,  locked, 
strapped,  and  as  pitifully  new  at  the  art  of  travelling 
as  the  girl  herself,  clustered  about  the  hem  of  her 
blue  serge  skirt  like  chicks  about  a  hen.  The  engine 
shrieked,  but  its  voice  sounded  weak  and  far  off  in 
that  still  ocean  of  space;  the  girl  tightened  her  grasp 
on  the  largest  of  the  satchels  and  looked  at  the 
approaching  porter  tentatively. 


JUDITH   OF   THE    PLAINS 

"We're  late  twenty-fi'e  minutes,"  he  reassured 
her,  with  the  hopeless  patience  of  one  who  has  lost 
heart  in  curbing  travellers'  enthusiasms. 

She  turned  towards  the  window  a  pair  of  shoulders 
plainly  significant  of  the  burdensome  last  straw. 

"Four  days  and  nights  in  this  train" — they  were 
slower  in  those  days — "and  now  this  extra  twenty- 
five 'minutes!'* 

Miss  Cannichael's  famous  dimple  hid  itself  in 
disgust.,  T.he  dei&ure lines  of  mouth  and  chin,  that 
could  always  be  relied  upon  for  special  pleading 
when  sentence  was  about  to  be  passed  on  the  dimple 
by  those  who  disapproved  of  dimples,  drooped  with 
disappointment.  But  the  light -brown  hair  con 
tinued  to  curl  facetiously — it  was  the  sort  of  hair 
whose  spontaneous  rippling  conveys  to  the  seeing 
eye  a  sense  of  humor. 

The  train  plodded  across  the  spacious  vacancy 
that  unrolled  itself  farther  and  farther  in  quest  of 
the  fugitive  horizon.  The  scrap  of  view  that  came 
within  a  closer  range  of  vision  spun  past  the  car 
windows  like  a  bit  of  stage  mechanism,  a  gigantic 
panorama  rotating  to  simulate  a  race  at  breakneck 
speed.  But  Miss  Carmichael  looked  with  unseeing 
eyes;  the  whirling  prairie  with  its  golden  flecks  of 
cactus  bloom  was  but  part  of  the  universal  strange 
ness,  and  the  dull  ache  of  homesickness  was  in  it 
all. 

"My  dear!  my  dear!"  —  a  head  in  crimpers  was 
thrust  from  between  the  curtains  of  the  section  op 
posite — "I've  been  awake  half  the  night.  I  was  so 
afraid  I  wouldn't  see  you  before  you  got  off," 

a 


"TOWN" 

The  head  was  followed,  almost  instinctively,  by  a 
hand  travelling  furtively  to  the  crimpers  that  grip 
ped  the  lady's  brow  like  barnacles  clinging  to  a  keel. 

Mary  expressed  a  grieved  appreciation  at  the  loss 
of  rest  in  behalf  of  her  early  departure,  and  con 
spicuously  forbore  to  glance  in  the  direction  of  the 
barnacles,  that  being  a  first  principle  as  between 
woman  and  woman. 

"And,  oh,  my  dear,  it  gets  worse  and  worse.  I've 
looked  at  it  this  morning,  and  it's  worse  in  Wyoming 
than  it  was  in  Colorado.  What  it  '11  be  before  I 
reach  California,  I  shudder  to  think." 

"It's  bound  to  improve,"  suggested  Mary,  with 
the  easy  optimism  of  one  who  was  leaving  it.  "It 
couldn't  be  any  worse  than  this,  could  it?" 

The  neuter  pronoun,  it  might  be  well  to  state, 
signified  the  prairie;  its  melancholy  personality 
having  penetrated  the  very  marrow  of  their  train 
existence,  they  had  come  to  refer  to  it  by  the 
monosyllable,  as  in  certain  nether  circles  the  head 
of  the  house  receives  his  superlative  distinction  in 
"He." 

Again  the  locomotive  shrieked,  again  the  girl 
mechanically  clutched  the  suit-case,  as  presenting 
the  most  difficult  item  in  the  problem  of  transporta 
tion,  and  this  time  the  shriek  was  not  an  idle 
formality.  The  train  slowed  down;  the  uneasy 
sleepers  behind  the  green-striped  curtains  stirred 
restlessly  with  the  lessening  motion  of  their  uncouth 
cradle.  The  porter  came  to  help  her,  with  the 
chastened  mien  of  one  whose  hopes  of  largess  are 
small,  the  lady  with  the  barnacles  called  after  her 

3 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

redundant  farewells,  and  a  moment  later  Miss 
Carmichael  was  standing  on  the  station  platform 
looking  helplessly  after  the  train  that  toiled  and 
puffed,  yet  seemed,  in  that  crystalline  atmosphere, 
still  within  arm's  -  reach.  She  watched  it  till  its 
floating  pennant  of  smoke  was  nothing  but  a  gray 
feather  blowing  farther  and  farther  out  of  sight  on 
the  flat  prairie. 

The  town — it  would  be  unkind  to  mention  its 
name — had  made  merry  the  night  before  at  the 
comprehensive  invitation  of  a  sheepman  who  had 
just  disposed  of  his  wool-clip,  and  who  said,  by  way 
of  general  summons,  "What's  the  use  of  temptin' 
the  bank?"  "Town,"  therefore,  when  Mary  Car 
michael  first  made  its  acquaintance,  was  still  sleep 
ing  the  sleep  of  the  unjust.  Those  among  last 
night's  roisterers  who  had  had  to  make  an  early 
start  for  their  camps  were  well  into  the  foot-hills  by 
this  time,  and  would  remember  with  exhilaration 
the  cracked  tinkle  of  the  dance-hall  piano  as  in 
spiring  music  when  the  lonesomeness  of  the  desert 
menaced  and  the  young  blood  again  clamored  for 
its  own. 

"Town"  —  it  contained  in  all  some  two  dozen 
buildings  — •  was  very  unlovely  in  slumber.  It 
sprawled  in  the  lap  of  the  prairies,  a  grimy-faced 
urchin,  with  the  lines  of  dismal  sophistication  writ 
deep.  Yet  where  in  all  the  "health  resorts"  of  the 
East  did  air  sweep  from  the  clean  hill-country  with 
such  revivifying  power?  It  seemed  a  glad  world 
of  abiding  youth.  Surely  "Town"  was  but  a 
dreary  illusion,  a  mirage  that  hung  in  the  unmapped 

4 


-TOWN" 

spaces  of  this  new  world  that  God  had  made  and 
called  good ;  an  omen  of  the  abominations  that  men 
would  make  when  they  grew  blind  to  the  beauty  of 
God's  world. 

Mary  Carmichael,  with  much  the  feelings  of  a 
cat  in  a  strange  garret,  wandered  about  the  sluggard 
town;  and  presently  the  blue-and-white  sign  of  a 
telegraph  office,  with  the  mythological  figure  of  a 
hastening  messenger,  suggested  to  her  that  a  re 
assuring  telegram  was  only  Aunt  Adelaide's  due. 
Whereupon  she  began  to  rap  on  the  door  of  the 
office,  a  scared  pianissimo  which  naturally  had 
little  effect  on  the  operator,  who  was  at  home  and 
asleep  some  three  blocks  distant.  But  the  West  is 
the  place  for  woman  if  she  would  be  waited  upon. 
No  seven-to-one  ratio  of  the  sexes  has  tempered  the 
chivalry  of  her  sons  of  the  saddle.  A  loitering  some 
thing  in  a  sombrero  saw  rather  than  heard  the 
rapping,  and,  at  the  sight,  went  in  quest  of  the 
dreaming  operator  without  so  much  as  embarrassing 
Miss  Carmichael  with  an  offer  of  his  services.  And 
presently  the  operator,  whose  official  day  did  not 
begin  for  some  two  hours  yet,  appeared,  much  di 
shevelled  from  running  and  the  cursory  nature  of  his 
toilet,  prepared  to  receive  a  message  of  life  and  death. 

The  wire  to  Aunt  Adelaide  ran: 

41  Practically  at  end  of  journey.  Take  stage  to  Lost  Trail 
this  morning.  Am  well.  Don't  worry  about  me. 

"MARY." 

And  the  telegraph  operator,  dimly  remembering 
that  he  had  heard  Lost  Trail  was  a  "pizen  mean 

5 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

country,"  and  that  it  was  tucked  some  two  hundred 
miles  back  in  the  foot-hills,  did  not  find  it  very  hard 
to  forgive  the  girl,  who  was  "practically  at  end  of 
journey,"  particularly  as  the  dimple  had  come  out 
of  hiding,  and  he  had  never  been  called  upon  to 
telegraph  the  word  "practically"  before.  He  was  a 
progressive  man  and  liked  to  extend  his  experi 
ences. 

After  sending  the  telegram,  Miss  Carmichael,  quite 
herself  by  reason  of  the  hill  air,  felt  that  she  was 
getting  along  famously  as  a  traveller,  but  that  it 
was  an  expensive  business,  and  she  was  glad  to  be 
"practically"  at  the  end  of  her  journey.  And, 
drawing  from  her  pocket  a  square  envelope  of  heavy 
Irish  linen,  a  little  worn  from  much  reading,  but 
primarily  an  envelope  that  bespoke  elegance  of 
taste  on  the  part  of  her  correspondent,  she  read: 

"LOST  TRAIL,  WYOMING. 

"Mv  DEAR  Miss  CARMICHAEL, — Pray  let  me  assure  you 
of  my  gratification  that  the  preliminaries  have  been  so 
satisfactorily  arranged,  and  that  we  are  to  have  you  with  us 
by  the  end  of  June.  The  children  are  profiting  from  the 
very  anticipation  of  it,  and  it  will  be  most  refreshing  to  all 
us  isolated  ones  to  be  able  to  welcome  an  Eastern  girl  as  a 
member  of  our  family. 

"Although  the  long  journey  across  the  continent  is  try 
ing,  particularly  to  one  who  has  not  made  it  before,  I  hope 
you  may  not  find  it  utterly  fatiguing.  Please  remember 
that  after  leaving  the  train,  it  will  be  necessary  to  take 
a  stage  to  Lost  Trail.  If  it  is  possible,  I  shall  meet  you 
with  the  buckboard  at  one  of  the  stage  stations;  otherwise, 
keep  to  the  stage  route,  being  careful  to  change  at  Dax's 
Ranch. 

"  Unfortunately,  the  children  vary  so  in  their  accomplish- 

6 


"TOWN" 

ments  that  I  fear  I  can  make  no  suggestions  as  to  what  you 
may  need  to  bring  with  you  in  the  way  of  text-books.  But 
I  think  you  will  find  them  fairly  well  grounded. 

"I  had  a  charming  letter  from  Mrs.  Kirkland,  who  said 
the  pleasantest  things  possible  of  you.  I  am  glad  the  wife 
of  our  Senator  was  able  conscientiously  to  commend  us. 

"With  our  most  cordial  good  wishes  for  a  safe  journey, 
believe  me,  dear  Miss  Carmichael, 

"Sincerely  yours, 

"SARAH  YELLETT." 

In  the  mean  time,  "Town"  came  yawning  to 
breakfast.  It  was  not  so  prankish  as  it  had  been 
the  night  before,  when  it  accepted  the  sheepman's 
broad  -  gauge  hospitality  and  made  merry  till  the 
sun  winked  from  behind  the  mountains.  It  made 
its  way  to  the  low,  shedlike  eating-house  with  a 
pre-breakfast  solemnity  bordering  on  sulkiness.  Not 
a  petticoat  was  in  sight  to  offset  the  spurs  and 
sombreros  that  filed  into  breakfast  from  every  point 
in  the  compass,  prepared  to  eat  primitively,  joke 
broadly,  and  quarrel  speedily  if  that  sensitive  and 
often  inconsistent  something  they  called  honor 
should  be  brushed  however  lightly. 

But  the  eternal  feminine  was  within,  and,  dis 
covering  it,  the  temper  of  "Town"  was  changed; 
it  ate  self-consciously,  made  jokes  meet  for  the  ears 
of  ladies,  and  was  more  interested  in  the  girl  in  the 
sailor-hat  than  it  was  in  remembering  old  feuds  or 
laying  the  foundations  of  new. 

In  its  interior  aspect,  the  eating-house  conveyed 
no  subtle  invitation  to  eat,  drink,  and  be  merry.  On 
the  contrary,  its  mission  seemed  to  be  that  of  con 
founding  appetite  at  every  turn.  A  long,  shedlike 

7 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

room  it  was,  with  walls  of  unpainted  pine,  still  sweat 
ing  from  the  axe.  Festoons  of  scalloped  paper,  in 
conflicting  shades,  hung  from  the  ceiling,  a  menace 
to  the  taller  of  the  guests.  On  the  rough  walls  some 
one,  either  prompted  by  a  latent  spirit  of  asstheticism 
or  with  an  idea  of  abetting  the  town  towards  merry 
making — an  encouragement  it  hardly  required — had 
tacked  posters  of  shows,  mainly  representing  the 
tank-and-sawmill  school  of  drama. 

Miss  Carmichael  sat  at  the  extreme  end  of  the 
long,  oilcloth-covered  table,  on  which  a  straggling 
army  of  salt  and  pepper  shakers,  catsup  bottles, 
and  divers  commercial  condiments  seemed  to  pause 
in  a  discouraged  march.  A  plague  of  flies  was  on 
everything,  and  the  food  was  a  threat  to  the  hardiest 
appetite.  One  man  summed  up  the  steak  with, 
"  You  got  to  work  your  jaw  so  hard  to  eat  it  that  it 
ain't  fair  to  the  next  meal." 

His  neighbor  heaved  a  sigh.  "This  here  forma 
tion,  whatever  it  be" — and  he  turned  the  meat  over 
for  better  inspection — ' '  do  shore  remind  me  of  an 
indestructible  doll  that  an  old  maid  aunt  of  mine 
giv'  my  sister  when  we  was  kids.  That  doll  sort 
of  challenged  me,  settin'  round  oncapable  o'  bein' 
destroyed,  and  one  day  I  ups  an'  has  a  chaw  at  her. 
She  war  ondestructible,  all  right;  'fore  that  Icon- 
eluded  my  speriments  I  had  left  a  couple  o'  teeth  in 
her." 

"Well,  I  discyards  the  steak  and  draw  to  a  pair 
of  aces,"  and  the  first  man  helped  himself  to  a 
couple  of  biscuits. 

Miss  Carmichael  knew,  by  the  continual  scraping 
8 


"TOWN" 

of  chairs  across  the  gritty  floor,  that  the  places  at 
the  table  must  be  nearly  all  taken;  and  while  she 
anticipated,  with  an  utterly  unreasonable  terror, 
any  further  invasion  of  her  seclusion  at  the  end  of 
the  table,  still  she  could  not  persuade  herself  to 
raise  her  eyes  to  detect  the  progress  of  the  enemy, 
even  in  the  interest  of  the  diary  she  had  kept  so 
conscientiously  for  the  past  three  days;  which  was 
something  of  a  loss  to  the  diary,  as  those  untamed, 
manly  faces  were  well  worth  looking  at.  Reckless 
they  were  in  many  instances,  and  sometimes  the 
lines  of  hardship  were  cruelly  writ  across  young 
faces  that  had  not  yet  lost  the  down  of  adolescence, 
but  there  were  humor  and  endurance  and  the 
courage  that  knows  how  to  make  a  crony  of  death 
and  get  right  good  sport  from  the  comradeship. 
Their  faults  were  the  faults  of  lusty,  red-blooded 
youth,  and  their  virtues  the  open-handed  generosity, 
the  ready  sympathy  of  those  uncertain  tilters  at 
life  who  ride  or  fall  in  the  tourney  of  a  new  country. 
At  present,  "the  yearling,"  drinking  her  execrable 
coffee  in  an  agony  of  embarrassment,  weighed 
heavily  on  their  minds.  They  would  have  liked  to 
rise  as  a  man  and  ask  if  there  was  anything  they 
could  do  for  her.  But  as  a  glance  towards  the  end 
of  the  table  seemed  to  increase  her  discomfiture 
tenfold,  they  did  the  kindest  and  for  them  the  most 
difficult  thing  and  looked  in  every  direction  but  Miss 
Carmichael's.  With  a  delicacy  of  perception  that 
the  casual  observer  might  not  have  given  them 
credit  for,  they  had  refrained  from  taking  seats 
directly  opposite  her,  or  those  immediately  on  her 

9 


JUDITH    OP   THE    PLAINS 

right,  which,  as  she  occupied  the  last  seat  at  the 
table,  gave  her  at  least  a  small  degree  of  seclusion. 

As  one  after  another  of  them  came  filing  in, 
bronzed,  rugged,  radiating  a  beauty  of  youth  and 
health  that  no  sketchy  exigence  of  apparel  could 
obscure,  some  one  already  seated  at  the  table  would 
put  a  foot  on  a  chair  opposite  him  and  send  it 
spinning  out  into  the  middle  of  the  floor  as  a  hint 
to  the  new-comer  that  that  was  his  reserved  seat. 
And  the  cow-puncher,  sheep-herder,  prospector,  or 
man  about  "Town,"  as  the  case  might  be,  would 
take  the  hint  and  the  chair,  leaving  the  petticoat 
separated  from  the  sombreros  by  a  table-land  of 
oilcloth  and  a  range  of  four  chairs. 

But  now  entered  a  man  who  failed  to  take  the 
hint  of  the  spinning  chair.  In  fact,  he  entered  the 
eating-house  with  the  air  of  one  who  has  dropped 
in  casually  to  look  for  a  friend  and,  incidentally, 
to  eat  his  breakfast.  He  stopped  in  the  doorway, 
scanned  the  table  with  deliberation,  and  started 
to  make  his  way  towards  Mary  Carmichael  with 
something  of  a  swagger.  Some  one  kicked  a  chair 
towards  him  at  the  head  of  the  table.  Some  one 
else  nearly  upset  him  with  one  before  he  reached 
the  middle,  and  the  Texan  remarked,  quite  audibly, 
as  he  passed: 

"The  damned  razor-back!" 

But  the  man  made  his  way  to  the  end  of  the  table 
and  drew  out  the  chair  opposite  Miss  Carmichael 
with  a  degree  of  assurance  that  precipitated  the 
rest  of  the  table  into  a  pretty  pother. 

Suppose  she  should  countenance  his  audacity? 
10 


"TOWN" 

The  fair  have  been  known  to  succumb  to  the  head 
long  force  of  a  charge,  when  the  persistence  of  a 
long  siege  has  failed  signally.  What  figures  they 
would  cut  if  she  did! — and  Simpson,  of  all  men!  A 
growing  tension  had  crept  into  the  atmosphere  of 
the  eating-house;  knives  and  forks  played  but  in 
termittently,  and  Mary,  sitting  at  the  end  of  the 
oilcloth-covered  table,  felt  intuitively  that  she  was 
the  centre  of  the  brewing  storm.  Oh,  why  hadn't 
she  been  contented  to  stay  at  home  and  make  over 
her  clothes  and  share  the  dwindling  fortunes  of  her 
aunts,  instead  of  coming  to  this  savage  place? 

"From  the  look  of  the  yearling's  chin,  I  think 
he'll  get  all  that's  coming  to  him,"  whispered  the 
man  who  had  nearly  upset  him  with  the  second 
chair. 

"You're  right,  pard.  If  I'm  any  good  at  reading 
brands,  she  is  as  self-protective  as  the  McKinley 
bill." 

The  man  Simpson  was  not  a  pleasant  vis-a-vis. 
He  wore  the  same  picturesque  ruffianliness  of  apparel 
as  his  fellows,  but  the  resemblance  stopped  there. 
He  lacked  their  dusky  bloom,  their  clearness  of  eye, 
the  suppleness  and  easy  flow  of  muscle  that  is  the 
hall  -  mark  of  these  frontiersmen.  He  was  fat  and 
squat  and  had  not  the  rich  bronzing  of  wind,  sun, 
and  rain.  His  small,  black  eyes  twinkled  from  his 
puffy,  white  face,  like  raisins  in  a  dough-pudding. 

He  was  ogling  Mary  amiably  when  the  woman 
who  kept  the  eating-house  brought  him  his  break 
fast.  Mrs.  Clark  was  a  potent  antidote  for  the  pre 
vailing  spirit  of  romance,  even  in  this  woman- 

ii 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

forsaken  country.  A  good  creature,  all  limp  calico, 
Roman  nose,  and  sharp  elbows,  she  brought  him  his 
breakfast  with  an  ill  grace  that  she  had  not  shown 
to  the  others.  The  men  about  the  table  gave  him 
scant  greeting,  but  the  absence  of  enthusiasm  didn't 
embarrass  Simpson. 

He  lounged  expansively  on  the  table,  regarding 
Miss  Carmichael  attentively  meanwhile;  then  favor 
ed  her  with  the  result  of  his  observations,  "From 
the  East,  I  take  it."  And  the  dumpling  face 
screwed  into  a  smile  whose  mission  was  pacific. 

Every  knife  and  fork  in  the  room  suspended 
action  in  anxiety  to  know  how  the  "yearling" 
would  take  it.  Would  their  chivalry,  which  strained 
at  a  gnat,  be  compelled  to  swallow  such  a  conspic 
uous  camel  as  the  success  of  Simpson?  With  the 
attitude  he  had  taken  towards  the  girl,  there  had 
crept  into  the  company  an  imperceptible  change; 
deep-buried  impulses  sprang  to  the  surface.  If  a 
scoundrel  like  Simpson  was  going  to  try  his  luck, 
why  shouldn't  they?  They  didn't  see  a  pretty  girl 
once  in  a  blue  moon.  With  the  advent  of  the 
green-eyed  monster  at  the  board,  each  man  un 
consciously  became  the  rival  of  his  neighbor. 

But  Miss  Carmichael  merely  continued  her  break 
fast,  and  if  she  heard  the  amiable  deductions  of 
Simpson  regarding  her,  she  gave  no  sign.  But  a 
rebuff  to  him  was  in  the  nature  of  an  appetizer,  a 
fillip  to  press  the  acquaintance.  He  encroached  a 
bit  farther  on  the  narrow  limits  of  the  table  and 
continued,  "Nice  weather  we're  having." 

Miss  Carmichael  gave  her  undivided  attention  to 
12 


"TOWN" 

her  coffee.  The  spurs  and  sombreros,  that  had  not 
relaxed  a  muscle  in  their  strained  observation  of  the 
little  drama,  breathed  reflectively.  Perhaps  it  was 
just  as  well  that  they  had  not  emulated  Simpson  in 
his  brazen  charge;  the  "yearling"  was  not  to  be  sur 
prised  into  talking,  that  was  certain. 

"He  shore  is  showing  hisself  to  be  a  friendly 
native,"  commented  the  man  who  had  sacrificed 
milk-teeth  investigating  the  indestructible  doll. 

"Seems  to  me  that  the  system  he's  playing  lacks 
a  heap  of  science.  My  money's  on  the  yearling." 
And  the  man  who  had  "discarded  the  steak  and 
drawn  to  the  biscuits"  leaned  a  little  forward  that 
he  might  better  watch  developments. 

Simpson  by  this  time  fully  realized  his  error,  but 
failure  before  all  these  bantering  youngsters  was 
a  contingency  not  to  be  accepted  lightly.  As  he 
phrased  it  to  himself,  it  was  worth  "another  throw." 
"  Seems  kind  o'  lonesome  not  having  any  one  to  talk 
to  while  you're  eatin',  don't  it?" 

Miss  Carmichael's  air  of  perfect  composure  seemed 
a  trifle  out  of  tune  with  her  surroundings;  the  nice 
elevation  of  eyebrow,  the  slightly  questioning  curl 
of  the  lip  as  she,  for  the  first  time  apparently,  be 
came  aware  of  the  man  opposite,  seemed  to  demand 
a  prim  drawing-room  rather  than  the  atmosphere 
of  the  slouching  eating-house. 

"Well,  really,  I've  hardly  had  a  chance  of  finding 
out."  And  her  eyes  were  again  on  her  coffee-cup. 
And  there  was  joy  among  the  men  at  table  that 
they  had  not  rushed  in  after  the  manner  of  those 
who  have  a  greater  courage  than  the  angels. 

13 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

"No  offence  meant,"  deprecated  Simpson,  with 
an  uneasy  glance  towards  the  other  end  of  the  table, 
where  the  men  sat  with  necks  craned  forward  in  an 
attitude  uncomfortably  suggestive  of  hounds  strain 
ing  at  the  leash.  Simpson  felt  rather  than  saw  that 
something  was  afoot  among  the  sombreros.  There 
was  a  crowding  together  in  whispered  colloquy,  and 
in  a  flash  some  half-dozen  of  them  were  on  their  feet 
as  a  man.  Descending  upon  Simpson,  they  lifted 
him,  chair  and  all,  to  the  other  end  of  the  table,  as 
far  removed  as  possible  from  Miss  Carmichael. 

The  man  who  thought  Simpson's  system  lacked 
science  rubbed  his  hands  in  delight.  "She  took  the 
trick  all  right;  swept  his  hand  clean  off  the  board!" 


II 

THE    ENCOUNTER 

SIMPSON,  from  the  seat  to  which  he  had  been 
so  rapidly  transplanted,  looked  about  him  with 
blinking  anxiety.  It  was  more  than  probable  that 
the  boys  intended  "to  have  fun  with  him,"  though 
his  talking,  or  rather  trying  to  talk,  to  a  girl  that 
sat  opposite  him  at  an  eating-house  table  was,  ac 
cording  to  his  ethics,  plainly  none  of  their  business. 
He  knew  he  wasn't  popular  since  he  had  done  for 
Jim  Rodney's  sheep,  though  the  crime  had  never 
been  laid  at  his  door,  officially.  He  had  his  way  to 
make,  the  same  as  the  next  one;  and,  all  said  and 
done,  the  cattle-men  were  glad  to  get  Jim  Rodney's 
sheep  off  the  range,  even  if  they  treated  him  as  a 
felon  for  the  part  he  had  played  in  their  extermina 
tion. 

Thus  reasoned  Simpson,  while  he  marked  with 
an  uneasy  eye  that  the  temper  of  the  company  had 
grown  decidedly  prankish  with  the  exit  of  the  girl, 
who,  after  having  caused  all  the  trouble,  had,  with 
an  irritating  quality  peculiar  to  her  sex,  vanished 
through  the  kitchen  door. 

Some  three  or  four  of  the  boys  now  ran  to  Simp 
son's  former  seat  at  the  table  and  rushed 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

him  with  his  half -eaten  breakfast,  as  if  the  errand 
had  been  one  of  life  and  death.  They  showered 
him  with  mock  attentions,  waiting  on  him  with  an 
exaggerated  deference,  and  the  pale,  fat  man,  re 
membering  the  hideousness  of  some  of  their  mani 
festations  of  a  sense  of  humor,  breathed  hard  and 
felt  a  falling-off  of  appetite. 

Costigan,  the  cattle-man,  a  strapping  Irish  giant, 
was  clearing  his  throat  with  ominous  sounds  that 
suggested  the  tuning-up  of  a  bass  fiddle. 

"Sure,  Simpson,  me  lad,  if  ye  happen  to  have 
a  matther  av  fifty  dollars,  'tis  mesilf  that  can  tell 
ye  av  an  illegint  invistmint." 

Simpson  looked  up  warily,  but  Costigan's  broad 
countenance  did  not  harbor  the  wraith  of  a  smile. 
"What  kin  I  git  for  fifty  chips?  'Tain't  much," 
mused  the  pariah,  with  the  prompt  inclination  to 
spend  that  stamps  the  comparative  stranger  to 
ready  money. 

"Ye  can  git  a  parrut,  man — a  grane  parrut — to 
kape  ye  coompany  while  ye're  aiting — " 

Simpson  interrupted  with  an  oath. 

"Don't  be  hard  on  old  Simmy;  remember  he's 
studied  for  the  ministry!  How  did  I  savey  that 
Simpson  aimed  to  be  a  sharp  on  doctrine?"  A  cow- 
puncher  with  a  squint  addressed  the  table  in  gen 
eral.  "I  scents  the  aroma  of  dogma  about  Simpson 
in  the  way  he  throwed  his  conversational  lariat  at 
the  yearling.  He  urbanes  at  her,  and  then  comes  his 
1  firstly,'  it  being  a  speculation  as  to  her  late  graz- 
ing-ground,  which  he  concludes  to  be  the  East.  His 
'  secondly '  ain't  nothing  startling,  words  familiar  to 

16 


THE    ENCOUNTER 

us  all  from  our  mother's  knee  —  '  nice  weather '  — 
the  congregation  ain't  visibly  moved.  His 'thirdly* 
is  insinuating.  In  it  he  hints  that  it  ain't  good  for 
man  to  be  alone  at  meals — " 

'  'Twas  the  congregation  that  added  the  'foinelly,' 
though,  before  hastily  leaving  be  the  back  door!" 
and  Costigan  slapped  his  thigh. 

"The  gentleman  in  question  don't  seem  to  be 
makin'  much  use  of  his  present  conversational 
opportunities.  I'm  feelin'  kinder  turned  down  my 
self  ";  and  the  Texan  began  to  look  over  his  six- 
shooter. 

The  man  with  the  squint  looked  up  and  down  the 
board. 

"Gentlemen,  I  believe  the  foregoing  expresses  the 
sentiment  of  this  company,  which,  while  it  incloodes 
many  foreign  and  frequent -warring  elements,  is  at 
present  held  together  by  the  natchral  tie  of  eat 
ing." 

Thumping  with  knife  and  fork  handles,  stamping 
of  feet,  cries  of  "Hear!  hear!"  with  at  least  three 
cow-boy  yells,  argued  well  for  a  resumption  of  last 
night's  festivities.  Simpson  glowered,  but  said  noth 
ing. 

1 '  Seems  to  me  you-all  goin'  the  wrong  way  'bout 
drawin'  Mistu'  Simpson  out.  He  is  shy  an'  has  to 
be  played  fo'  like  a  trout,  an'  heah  you-all  come  at 
him  like  a  cattle  stampede."  The  big  Texan  leaned 
towards  Simpson.  "Now  you-all  watch  my  meth 
ods.  Mistu'  Simpson,  seh,  what  du  think  of  the 
prospects  of  rain?" 

There  was  a  general  recommendation  from  Simp- 
17 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

son  that  the  entire  company  go  to  a  locality  below 
the  rain-belt. 

A  boy,  plainly  "from  the  East,"  and  looking 
as  if  the  ink  on  his  graduating  thesis  had  scarce  had 
time  to  dry,  was  on  his  feet,  swaggering;  he  would 
not  have  swapped  his  newly  acquired  camaraderie 
with  these  bronzed  Westerners  for  the  Presidency. 

"Gentlemen,  you  have  all  heard  Simpson  say  it 
is  lonesome  having  no  one  to  talk  to  during  meals. 
We  sympathized  with  him  and  offered  him  a  choice 
of  subjects.  He  greets  our  remarks  by  a  conspic 
uous  silence,  varied  by  profanity.  This,  gentlemen, 
reflects  on  us,  and  is  a  matter  demanding  public 
satisfaction.  All  who  feel  that  their  powers  as  con 
versationalists  have  been  impugned  by  the  silence 
of  Simpson,  please  say  'Ay.'" 

"Ay"  was  howled,  sung,  and  roared  in  every  note 
of  the  gamut. 

"If  me  yoong  frind  here  an  me  roight"  —  and 
Costigan  jerked  a  shoulder  towards  the  boy — "will 
be  afther  closin'  that  silf-feeding  automatic  diction 
ary  av  his  for  a  moment,  I  shud  be  glad  to  call  the 
attintion  av  the  coomp'ny  to  somethin'  in  the  nat 
ure  av  an  ixtinuatin'  circoomsthance  in  the  case  av 
Simpson." 

"Hear!  hear!"  they  shouted.  The  broad  coun 
tenance  of  Costigan  beamed  with  joy  at  what  he  was 
about  to  say.  "Gintlemin,  the  silence  av  Mr. 
Simpson  is  jew  in  all  probabilitee  to  a  certain  ivint 
recalled  by  many  here  prisint,  an*  more  that's 
absent,  an*  amicablee  settled  out  av  coort — " 

Up  to  this  time  the  unhappy  Simpson  had  shown 
18 


THE    ENCOUNTER 

an  almost  superhuman  endurance.  Now  he  bristled 
— and  after  looking  up  and  down  the  board  for  a 
sympathetic  face,  and  not  finding  one,  he  declared, 
loudly  and  generally,  "'Tain't  so!" 

"Ye  may  have  noticed  that  frind  Simpson  do  be 
t'reatened  wid  lockjaw  in  the  societee  av  min,  but 
in  the  prisince  av  a  female  ye  can't  count  on  him. 
Now,'  talk  wid  a  female  is  an  agreeable,  if  not  a 
profitable,  way  av  passin'  the  toime,  but  sure  ye 
niver  know  where  it  will  ind — as  witness  Simpson. 
This  lady  I'm  recallin' — 'tis  a  matther  av  two  years 
ago — followed  the  ancient  and  honorable  profission 
av  biscuit  shootin'  not  far  from  Caspar.  Siz  Simp 
son  to  the  lady  some  such  passin'  civilitee  as,  *  Good- 
marnin';  plisent  weather  we're  havinY  Where 
upon  the  lady  filt  a  damage  to  her  affictions  an' 
sued  him  for  breach  av  promise." 

"'Twan't  that  way,  at  all!"  screamed  Simpson. 
'"Sail  a  lie!" 

"Yu  ought  er  said  'Good-evenin"  to  the  lady, 
Mistu  Simpson;  hit  make  a  diffunce,"  drawled  the 
man  from  Texas,  pleasantly. 

"But  'twas  ' Good-marnin"  Simpson  made  chyce 
av,"  resumed  Costigan.  "An'  the  lady  replied, 
4  You've  broke  my  heart.'  Whereupon  Simpson, 
havin'  a  matther  av  t'ree  thousand  dollars  to  pay 
for  his  passin'  civilitee,  learned  thot  silince  was 
goolden." 

They  all  remembered  the  incident  in  question, 
and  thundered  applause  at  the  reappearance  of  an 
old  favorite.  Without  warning,  a  shadow  fell  across 
the  sunlight-flooded  room,  and,  as  one  after  an- 

19 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

other  of  the  men  glanced  up  from  the  table,  they  saw 
standing  in  the  doorway  a  man  of  such  malignant 
aspect  that  his  look  fell  across  the  company  like  a 
menace.  The  swing  of  their  banter  slowed  sudden 
ly  ;  it  was  as  if  the  cold  of  a  new-turned  grave  had 
struck  across  the  June  sunshine  checking  their  rough 
shod  fun.  None  of  them  had  the  hardihood  to  joke 
with  a  man  that  stood  in  the  shadow  of  death ;  and 
hate  and  murder  looked  from  the  eyes  of  the  man 
in  the  doorway  and  looked  towards  Simpson.  One 
by  one  they  perceived  the  man  of  the  shadow,  all 
but  Simpson,  eating  steak  drowned  in  Worcester 
shire. 

The  man  in  the  doorway  was  tall  and  lean,  and 
the  prison  blench  upon  his  face  was  in  unpleasant 
contrast  to  the  ruddy  tan  of  the  faces  about  the 
table.  His  sombrero  was  tipped  back  and  the  hair 
hung  dank  about  the  pale,  sweating  forehead, 
suggestive  of  sickness.  But  weak  health  did  not 
imply  weak  purpose;  every  feature  in  that  hawk 
like  face  was  sharp  with  hatred,  and  in  the  narrowing 
eye  was  vengeance  that  is  sweet. 

He  stood  still;  there  was  in  his  hatred  a  some 
thing  hypnotic  that  grew  imperceptibly  and  imper 
ceptibly  communicated  itself  to  the  men  at  table. 
He  gloated  over  the  eating  fat  man  as  if  he  had 
dwelt  much"  in  imagination  on  the  sight  and  was  in 
no  hurry  to  curtail  his  joy  at  the  reality.  The  men 
began  to  get  restless,  shuffle  their  feet,  moisten  their 
lips;  only  the  college  boy  spoke,  and  then  from  a 
wealth  of  ignorance,  knowing  nothing  of  the  rugged, 
give-and-take  jxistice  of  the  plains — an  eye  for  an 

20 


THE    ENCOUNTER 

eye,  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,  and  the  law  and  the  courts 
go  hang  while  a  man's  got  a  right  arm  to  pull  a  trig 
ger.  Not  one  in  all  that  company,  even  the  cattle 
men  whose  interests  were  opposed  to  Rodney's,  but 
felt  the  justice  of  his  errand. 

"When  did  they  let  him  out?"  whispered  the 
college  boy;  and  then,  "Oughtn't  we  to  do  some 
thing?" 

"Yis,  me  son,"  whispered  Costigan.  "We  ought 
to  sit  still  and  learn  a  thing  or  two." 

The  fat  man  cleaned  his  plate  with  a  crust  of  bread 
stuck  on  the  point  of  a  knife.  There  was  nothing 
more  to  eat  in  the  way  of  substantiate,  and  he 
debated  pouring  a  little  more  of  the  sauce  on  his 
plate  and  mopping  it  with  a  bit  of  bread  still  un 
eaten.  Considering  the  pro  and  con.  of  this  extra 
tid-bit,  he  glanced  up  and  saw  the  gaunt  man 
standing  in  the  doorway. 

Simpson  dropped  the  knife  from  his  shaking  hand 
and  started  up  with  a  cry  that  died  away  in  a  gurgle, 
an  inhuman,  nightmare  croak.  He  looked  about 
wildly,  like  a  rat  in  a  trap,  then  backed  towards  the 
wall.  The  men  about  the  table  got  up,  then  cleared 
away  in  a  circle,  leaving  the  fat  man.  It  was  all 
like  a  dream  to  the  college  boy,  who  had  never  seen 
a  thing  of  the  kind  before  and  could  not  realize  now 
that  it  was  happening.  Rodney  advanced,  never 
once  relaxing  the  look  in  which  he  seemed  to  hold 
his  enemy  as  in  a  vise.  Simpson  was  like  a  man 
bewitched.  Once,  twice,  he  made  a  grab  for  his 
revolver,  but  his  right  hand  seemed  to  have  lost 
power  to  heed  the  bidding  of  his  will.  Rodney, 

21 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

now  well  towards  the  centre  of  the  room,  waited, 
with  a  suggestion  of  ceremony,  for  Simpson  to  get 
his  six-shooter. 

It  was  one  of  those  moments  in  which  time  seems 
to  have  become  petrified.  The  limp  -  clad  pro 
prietress  of  the  eating-house,  made  curious  by  the 
sudden  silence,  looked  in  from  the  kitchen.  Simp 
son,  his  eyes  wandering  like  a  trapped  rat,  saw,  and 
called,  through  teeth  that  chattered  in  an  ague  of 
fear,  ' '  Ree  —  memm  —  ber  thth  • —  there's  la  —  dies 
p — present!  For  Gawd's  sake, remember  t — there's 
ladies  p — present!" 

The  pale  man  looked  towards  the  kitchen,  and, 
seeing  the  woman,  he  gave  Simpson  a  look  in  which 
there  was  only  contempt.  "You've  hid  behind  the 
law  once,  and  this  time  it's  petticoats.  The  open 
don't  seem  to  have  no  charm  for  you.  But — "  He 
didn't  finish,  there  was  no  need  to.  Every  one 
knew  and  understood.  He  put  up  his  revolver  and 
walked  into  the  street. 

The  men  broke  into  shouts  of  laughter,  loud  and 
ringing,  then  doubled  up  and  had  it  out  all  over 
again.  And  their  noisy  merriment  was  as  clear  an 
indication  of  the  suddenly  lifted  strain,  at  the 
averted  shooting,  as  it  was  of  their  enjoyment  of  the 
farce.  Simpson,  relieved  of  the  fear  of  sudden 
death,  now  sought  to  put  a  better  face  on  his 
cowardice.  Now  that  his  enemy  was  well  out  of 
sight,  Simpson  handled  his  revolver  with  easy 
assurance. 

"Put  ut  up,"  shouted  Costigan,  above  the  gen 
eral  uproar.  '"Tis  toime  to  fear  a  revolver  in 

22 


THE    ENCOUNTER 

the  hands  av  Simpson  whin  he's  no  intinsions  av 
shootin'." 

Simpson  still  attempted  to  harangue  the  crowd, 
but  his  voice  was  lost  in  the  general  thigh-slapping 
and  the  shouts  and  roars  that  showed  no  signs  of 
abating.  But  when  he  caught  a  man  by  the  coat 
lapel  in  his  efforts  to  secure  a  hearing,  that  was 
another  matter,  and  the  man  shook  him  off  as  if  his 
touch  were  contagion..  Simpson,  craving  mercy  on 
account  of  petticoats,  evading  a  meeting  that  was 
"up  to  him,"  they  were  willing  to  stand  as  a  laugh 
ing-stock,  but  Simpson  as  an  equal,  grasping  the 
lapels  of  their  coats,  they  would  have  none  of. 

He  slunk  away  from  them  to  a  corner  of  the 
eating-house,  feeling  the  stigma  of  their  contempt, 
yet  afraid  to  go  out  into  the  street  where  his  en 
emy  might  be  waiting  for  him.  Much  of  death  and 
blood  and  recklessness  "Town"  had  seen  and  con 
doned,  but  cowardice  was  the  unforgivable  sin.  It 
balked  the  rude  justice  of  these  frontiersmen  and 
tampered  with  their  code,  and  Simpson  knew  that 
the  game  had  gone  against  him. 

"What  was  it  all  about?  Were  they  in  earnest, 
or  was  it  only  their  way  of  amusing  themselves?" 
inquired  Mary  Carmichael,  who  had  slipped  into 
Mrs.  Clark's  kitchen  after  the  men  at  the  table  had 
taken  things  in  hand. 

"Jim  Rodney  was  in  earnest,  an'  he  had  reason  to 
be.  That  man  Simpson  was  paid  by  a  cattle  outfit 
—  now,  mind,  I  ain't  say  in'  which  —  to  get  Jim 
Rodney's  sheep  off  the  range.  They  had  threatened 
him  and  cut  the  throats  of  two  hundred  of  his  herd 

23 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

as  a  warning,  but  Jim  went  right  on  grazin'  'em, 
same  as  he  had  always  been  in  the  habit  of  doing. 
Well,  I'm  told  they  up  and  makes  Simpson  an  offer 
to  get  rid  of  the  sheep.  Jim  has  over  five  thousand, 
an'  it's  just  before  lambing,  and  them  pore  ewes,  all 
heavy,  is  being  druv'  down  to  Watson's  shearing- 
pens,  that  Jim  always  shears  at.  Jim  an'  two  herd 
ers  and  a  couple  of  dawgs  —  least,  this  is  the  way 
I  heard  it — is  drivin'  'em  easy,  'cause,  as  I  said 
before,  it's  just  before  lambing.  It  does  now  seem 
awful  cruel  to  me  to  shear  just  before  lambing,  but 
that's  their  way  out  here. 

"Well,  nothing  happens,  and  Jim  ain't  more'n 
two  hours  from  the  pens  an'  he  comes  to  that  place 
on  the  road  that  branches  out  over  the  top  of  a 
canon,  and  there  some  one  springs  out  of  a  clump  of 
willows  an'  dashes  into  the  herd  and  drives  the 
wether  that's  leading  right  over  the  cliff.  The 
leaders  begin  to  follow  that  wether,  and  they  go 
right  over  the  cliff  like  the  pore  fools  they  are.  The 
her'der  fired  and  tried  to  drive  'em  back,  they  tell  me, 
an'  he  an'  the  dawg  were  shot  at  from  the  clump  of 
willows  by  some  one  else  who  was  there.  Three 
hundred  sheep  had  gone  over  the  cliff  before  Jim 
knew  what  was  happening.  He  rode  like  mad  right 
through  the  herd  to  try  and  head  'em  off;  but  you 
know  what  sheep  is  like — they're  like  lost  souls 
headin'  for  damnation.  Nothing  can  stop  'em  when 
they're  once  started.  And  Jim  lost  every  head — 
started  for  the  shearing-pens  a  rich  man — rich  for 
Jim — an'  seen  everything  he  had  swept  away  before 
his  eyes,  his  wife  an'  children  made  paupers.  My 

24 


THE    ENCOUNTER 

son  he  come  by  and  found  him.  He  said  that  Jim 
was  sittin'  huddled  up  in  a  heap,  his  knees  drawed 
up  under  his  chin,  starin'  straight  up  into  the  noonday 
sky,  same  as  if  he  was  askin'  God  how  He  could  be 
so  cruel.  His  dead  dawg,  that  they  had  shot,  was 
by  the  side  of  him.  The  herder  that  was  with  Jim 
had  taken  the  one  that  was  shot  into  Watson's,  so 
when  my  son  found  Jim  he  was  alone,  sittin'  on  the 
edge  of  the  cliff  with  his  dead  dawg,  an'  the  sky 
about  was  black  with  buzzards;  an'  Jim  he  just  sat 
an'  stared  up  at  'em,  and  when  my  son  spoke  to  him 
he  never  answered  any  more  than  a  dead  man.  He 
shuck  him  by  the  arm,  but  Jim  just  sat  there,  watch- 
in'  the  sun,  the  buzzards,  and  the  dead  sheep." 
"Was  nothing  done  to  this  man  Simpson?" 
"The  cattle  outfit  that  he  done  the  dirty  work 
for  swore  an  alibi  for  him.  Jim  has  been  in  hard 
luck  ever  since.  He's  been  rustlin'  cattle  right 
along;  but  Lord,  who  can  blame  him?  He  got  into 
some  trouble  down  to  Rawlins  —  shot  a  man  he 
thought  was  with  Simpson,  but  who  wasn't — and 
he's  been  in  jail  ever  since.  Course  now  that  he's 
out  Simpson's  bound  to  get  peppered.  Glad  it 
didn't  happen  here,  though.  'Twould  be  a  kind  of 
unpleasant  thing  to  have  connected  with  a  eating- 
house,  don't  you  think  so?"  she  inquired,  with  the 
grim  philosophy  of  the  country. 

The  eating-house  patrons  had  gone  their  several 
ways,  and  the  quiet  of  the  dining-room  was  oppres 
sive  by  contrast  with  its  late  boisterousness.  Mrs. 
Clark,  her  hands  imprisoned  in  bread-dough,  begged 
Mary  to  look  over  the  screen  door  and  see  if  any- 

25 


JUDITH   OP   THE    PLAINS 

thing  was  happening.     ' '  I'm  always  suspicious  when 
it's  quiet.     I  know  they're  in  deviltry  of  some  sort." 

Mary  tiptoed  to  the  door  and  peeped  over,  but 
the  room  was  deserted,  save  for  Simpson,  huddled 
in  a  corner,  biting  his  finger-nails.  "The  nasty 
thing!"  exploded  Mrs.  Clark,  when  she  had  received 
the  bulletin.  "I'd  turn  him  out  if  it  wasn't  for  the 
notoriety  he  might  bring  my  place  in  gettin'  killed 
in  front  of  it." 

"  I  dare  say  I'd  better  go  and  see  after  my  trunk; 
it's  still  on  the  station  platform."  Mary  wondered 
what  her  prim  aunts  would  think  of  her  for  sitting 
in  Mrs.  Clark's  kitchen,  but  it  had  seemed  so  much 
more  of  a  refuge  than  the  sordid  streets  of  the 
hideous  little  town,  with  its  droves  of  men  and 
never  a  glimpse  of  a  woman  that  she  had  been  only 
too  glad  to  avail  herself  of  the  invitation  of  the 
proprietress  to  "make  herself  at  home  till  the  stage 
left." 

"Well,  good  luck  to  you,"  said  Mrs.  Clark,  wiping 
her  hand  only  partially  free  from  dough  and  pre 
senting  it  to  Miss  Carmichael.  She  had  not  inquired 
where  the  girl  was  going,  nor  even  hinted  to  discover 
where  she  came  from,  but  she  gave  her  the  godspeed 
that  the  West  knows  how  to  give,  and  the  girl  felt 
better  for  it. 

At  the  station,  where  Mary  shortly  presented 
herself,  in  the  interest  of  that  old  man  of  the  sea 
of  all  travellers,  luggage,  she  learned  that  the  stage 
did  not  leave  town  for  some  three-quarters  of  an 
hour  yet.  A  young  man,  manipulating  many  sheets 
of  flimsy,  yellow  paper  covered  with  large,  flourish- 

96 


THE    ENCOUNTER 

ing  handwriting,  looked  up  in  answer  to  her  in 
quiries  about  Lost  Trail.  This  young  man,  whose 
accent,  clothes,  and  manner  proclaimed  him  "from 
the  East,"  whither,  in  all  probability,  he  would 
shortly  return  if  he  did  not  mend  his  ways,  dis 
claimed  all  knowledge  of  the  place  as  if  it  were  an 
undesirable  acquaintance.  But  before  he  could 
deny  it  thrice,  a  man  who  had  heard  the  cabalistic 
name  was  making  his  way  towards  the  desk,  the 
pride  of  the  traveller  radiating  from  every  feature. 

The  cosmopolite  who  knew  Lost  Trail  was  the 
type  of  man  who  is  born  to  be  a  Kentucky  colonel, 
and  perhaps  may  have  achieved  his  destiny  before 
coming  to  this  "No  Man's  Land,"  for  reasons  into 
which  no  one  inquired,  and  which  were  obviously 
no  one's  business.  They  knew  him  here  by  the 
name  of  "  Lone  Tooth  Hank,"  and  he  wore  what  had 
been,  in  the  days  of  his  colonelcy — or  its  equivalent 
— a  frock-coat,  restrained  by  the  lower  button,  and 
thus  establishing  a  waist-line  long  after  nature  had 
had  the  last  word  to  say  on  the  subject.  With  this 
he  wore  the  sombrero  of  the  country,  and  the  com 
bination  carried  a  rakish  effect  that  was  positively 
sinister. 

The  scornful  clerk  introduced  Mary  as  a  young 
lady  inquiring  about  some  place  in  the  bad-lands. 
Off  came  the  sombrero  with  a  sweep,  and  Lone 
Tooth  smiled  in  a  way  that  accented  the  dental 
solitaire  to  which  he  owed  his  name.  Miss  Car- 
michael,  concealing  her  terror  of  this  casual  cavalier, 
inquired  if  he  could  tell  her  the  distance  to  Lost 
Trail. 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

"I  sho'ly  can,  and  with  consid'able  pleasure." 
The  sombrero  completed  a  semicircular  sweep  and 
arrived  in  the  neighborhood  of  Mr.  Hank's  heart  in 
significance  of  his  vassalage  to  the  fair  sex.  He 
proceeded : 

"Lost  Trail  sutney  is  right  lonesome.  A  friend 
of  mine  gets  a  little  too  playful  fo'  the  evah-increas- 
in'  meetropolitan  spirit  of  this  yere  camp,  and  tries 
a  little  tahget  practice  on  the  main  bullyvard,  an' 
finds  the  atmospheah  onhealthful  in  consequence. 
Hearin'  that  the  quiet  solitude  of  Lost  Trail  is  what 
he  needs,  he  lit  out  with  the  following  circumstance 
thereof  happenin'.  One  day  something  in  his  har 
ness  giv'  way  —  and  he  recollects  seem'  a  boot 
sunnin'  itself  back  in  the  road  'bout  a  quartah  of  a 
mile.  An'  he  figgahs  he'll  borry  a  strip  of  leather 
off  the  boot  to  mend  his  harness.  Back  he  goes  and 
finds  it  has  a  kind  of  loaded  feelin'.  So  my  friend 
investigates  —  and  I  be  blanked  if  there  wasn't  a 
foot  and  leg  inside  of  it." 

Miss  Carmichael  had  always  exercised  a  super- 
feminine  self-restraint  in  the  case  of  casual  mice, 
and  it  served  her  in  the  present  instance.  Instead 
of  screaming,  she  said,  after  the  suppression  of  a 
gasp  or  two: 

"Thank  you  so  much,  but  I  won't  detain  you 
any  longer.  Your  information  makes  Lost  Trail 
even  more  interesting  than  I  had  expected." 

Besides,  Miss  Carmichael  had  a  faint  suspicion 
that  this  might  be  a  preconcerted  plan  to  terrify 
the  "lady  tenderfoot,"  and  she  prided  herself  on 
being  equal  to  the  situation.  The  time  at  her 

28 


THE    ENCOUNTER 

disposal  before  the  stage  would  embark  on  that 
unknown  sea  of  prairies  she  spent  in  the  delectable 
pastime  of  shopping.  The  financial  and  social  in 
terests  of  the  town  seemed  to  converge  in  Hugous 
&  Co.'s  "trading  store,"  where  Miss  Carmichael 
invested  in  an  extra  package  of  needles  for  the 
mere  excitement  of  being  one  of  the  shoppers, 
though  her  aunt  Adelaide  had  stocked  the  little 
plaid-silk  work-bag  to  repletion  with  every  variety 
of  needle  known  to  woman.  She  pricked  up  her 
ears,  meanwhile,  at  some  of  the  purchases  made 
by  the  cow-boys  for  their  camp-larders  —  devilled 
ham,  sardines,  canned  tomatoes  heading  the  list 
as  prime  favorites.  Did  these  strapping  border 
lads  live  by  the  fruit  of  the  tin  alone?  Apparently 
yes,  with  the  sophisticated  accompaniment  of  soda 
biscuit,  to  judge  by  the  quantity  of  baking-powder 
they  invested  in  —  literally  pounds  of  it.  Men  in 
any  other  condition  of  life  would  have  died  of  slow 
poisoning  as  the  result  of  it. 

There  were  other  customers  at  Hugous'  that 
morning  besides  the  spurred  and  booted  cow- 
puncher  and  his  despised  compeer,  the  sheep-herd 
er.  That  restless  emigrant  class,  whose  origin,  as 
a  class,  lay  in  the  community  of  its  own  uncertain 
schemes  of  fortune;  the  West,  with  her  splendid, 
lavish  promises,  called  them  from  their  thriftless 
farms  in  the  South  and  their  gray  cabins  in  New 
England.  They  began  their  journeying  towards 
the  land  of  promise  long  before  the  Indians  had 
ever  seen  the  shrieking  "fire-wagon."  All  day  they 
would  toil  over  the  infinitude  of  prairie,  the  sun  that 
3  29 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

hid  nightly  behind  that  maddeningly  elusive  vanish 
ing-point,  the  horizon,  their  only  guide.  But  the 
makeshifts  of  the  wagon  life  were  not  without  charm. 
They  began  to  wander  in  quest  of  they  knew  not 
precisely  what,  and  from  these  vague  beginnings 
there  had  sprung  into  existence  that  nomadic 
population  that  was  once  such  a  feature  of  the  far 
West,  but  is  now  going  the  way  of  the  Indians  and 
the  cow-boys. 

This  breathing  -  space  in  the  long  journey  had 
for  them  the  stimulus  of  a  holiday-making.  They 
bought  their  sides  of  bacon  and  their  pounds  of 
coffee  as  merrily  as  if  they  were  playing  a  game  of 
forfeits,  the  women  fingering  the  calico  they  did 
not  want  for  the  joy  of  pricing  and  making  shoppers' 
talk. 

The  scene  had  a  scriptural  flavor  that  not  even 
the  blue  overalls  of  the  men  nor  the  calico  gowns 
of  the  women  could  altogether  eliminate.  Their 
wagons,  bulging  with  household  goods  and  trailing 
with  kitchen  utensils  secured  by  bits  of  rope,  were 
drawn  up  in  front  of  the  trading-store.  From  a 
pump,  at  some  little  distance,  the  pilgrims  filled 
their  stone  water-bottles,  for  the  wise  traveller  does 
not  trust  to  the  chance  springs  of  the  desert. 
Baskets  of  chickens  were  strapped  to  many  of  the 
wagons,  but  whether  the  unhappy  fowls  were  de 
signed  to  supply  fresh  eggs  and  an  occasional  fric- 
asse*e,  or  were  taken  for  the  pleasure  of  their  com 
pany,  there  was  no  means  of  determining  short  of 
impertinent  cross  -  questioning.  Sometimes  a  cow, 
and  invariably  a  dog,  formed  one  of  the  family 

3° 


THE    ENCOUNTER 

party,  and  an  edifying  esprit  de  corps  seemed  to 
dwell  among  them  all. 

Lone  Tooth  Hank,  in  his  capacity  of  man  about 
town,  stood  on  the  steps  of  Hugous'  watching  the 
preparations;  and, seeing  Miss  Carmichael, approach 
ed  with  the  air  of  an  old  and  tried  family  friend. 

''Do  I  obsehve  yu  regyarding  oweh  '  settleahs,' 
called  settleahs  'cause  they  nevah  settle?"  Hank 
laughed  gently,  as  one  who  has  made  a  joke  meet 
for  ladies.  "I've  known  whole  famblies  to  bohn  an' 
raise  right  in  one  of  them  wagons;  and  tuhn  out  a 
mighty  fine,  endurin'  lot,  too,  this  hyeh  prospectin' 
round  afteh  somethin'  they  wouldn't  reco'nize  if 
they  met.  Gits  to  be  a  habit  same  as  drink.  They 
couldn't  live  in  a  house  same  as  humans,  not  if  yu 
filled  their  gyarden  with  nuggets  an'  their  well 
with  apple-jack." 

Miss  Carmichael  looked  attentive  but  said  noth 
ing.  In  truth,  she  was  more  afraid  of  Hank,  his 
obvious  gallantry,  and  his  grewsome  tales  of  boots 
with  legs  in  them  than  she  was  of  the  unknown 
terrors  of  Lost  Trail. 

"I  believe  that  is  my  stage,"  she  said,  as  a  red 
conveyance  not  unlike  a  circus  wagon  halted  at 
some  little  distance  from  the  trading-store.  And 
as  she  spoke  she  saw  four  of  her  companions  of  the 
breakfast-table  heading  towards  the  stage,  each  with 
a  piece  of  her  precious  luggage.  Mary  Carmichael 
was  precipitated  in  a  sudden  panic;  she  had  heard 
tales  of  the  pranks  of  these  playful  Western  squires — 
a  little  gun-play  to  induce  the  terrified  tenderfoot 
to  put  a  little  more  spirit  into  his  Highland  fling, 

31 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

"by  request."  She  remembered  their  merrymaking 
with  Simpson  at  breakfast.  What  did  they  intend 
to  do  with  her  belongings  ?  And  as  she  remembered 
the  little  plaid  sewing-bag  that  Aunt  Adelaide  had 
made  for  her — surreptitiously  drying  her  tears  in  the 
mean  time — when  she  remembered  that  bag  and  the 
possibility  of  its  being  submitted  to  ignominy,  she 
could  have  cried  or  done  murder,  she  wasn't  sure 
which. 

"Well,  'pon  my  wohd,  heah  ah  the  boys  with 
yo'  baggage.  How  time  du  fly!" 

"Oh!"  she  gasped,  "what  are  they  going  to  do 
with  it?" 

"Place  it  on  the  stage,  awaitin'  yo'  ohdahs." 
And  to  her  expression  of  infinite  relief — "  Yo'  didn't 
think  any  disrepec'  would  be  shown  the  baggage  of 
a  lady  honorin'  this  hyeh  metropolis  with  her  pres 
ence?" 

She  thanked  the  knights  of  the  lariat  the  more 
warmly  for  her  unjust  suspicions.  They  stowed 
away  the  luggage  with  the  deft  capacity  of  men  who 
have  returned  to  the  primitive  art  of  using  their 
hands.  She  climbed  beside  the  driver  on  the  box 
of  the  stage.  Lone  Tooth  Hank  and  the  cow- 
punchers  chivalrously  raised  their  sombreros  with 
a  simultaneous  spontaneity  that  suggested  a  flight 
of  rockets.  The  driver  cracked  his  whip  and  turned 
the  horses'  heads  towards  the  billowing  sea  of  foot 
hills,  and  the  last  cable  that  bound  Mary  Car- 
michael  to  civilization  was  cut. 


Ill 

LEANDE:R  AND  HIS  LADY 

THE  only  stage  passenger  besides  Miss  Car- 
michael  was  a  fat  lady,  whose  entire  luggage 
seemed  to  consist  of  luncheon — pasteboard  boxes 
of  sandwiches,  baskets  of  fruit,  napkins  of  cake. 
These  she  began  to  dispose  of,  before  the  stage  had 
fairly  started,  with  an  industry  almost  automatic, 
continuing  faithful  to  her  post  as  long  as  the  supplies 
lasted.  Then  she  dozed,  sleeping  the  sleep  of  the 
just  and  those  who  keep  their  mouths  open.  From 
time  to  time  the  stage -driver  invoked  his  team  in 
cabalistic  words,  and  each  time  the  horses  toiled 
forward  with  fresh  energy;  but  progress  became  a 
mockery  in  that  ocean  of  space,  their  driving  seemed 
as  futile  as  the  sport  of  children  who  crack  a  whip 
and  play  at  stage  -  coach  with  a  couple  of  chairs ; 
the  mountains  still  mocked  in  the  distance. 

A  flat,  unbroken  sweep  of  country,  a  tangle  of 
straggling  sage-brush,  a  glimpse  of  foot-hills  in  the 
distance,  was  the  outlook  mile  after  mile.  The  day 
grew  pitilessly  hot.  Clouds  of  alkaline  dust  swept 
aimlessly  over  the  desert  or  whirled  into  spirals  till 
lost  in  space.  From  horizon  to  horizon  the  sky 
was  one  cloudless  span  of  blue  that  paled  as  it 

33 


JUDITH   OP   THE    PLAINS 

dipped  earthward.  Mary  Carmichael  dozed  and 
wakened,  but  the  prospect  was  always  the  same — 
the  red  stage  crawling  over  the  wilderness,  making 
no  evident  progress,  and  always  the  sun,  the  sage 
brush,  and  the  silence. 

It  was  all  so  overwhelmingly  different  from  the 
peaceful  atmosphere  of  things  at  home.  The  mellow 
Virginia  country,  with  its  winding,  red  roads,  wealth 
of  woodland,  and  its  grave  old  houses  that  were  the 
more  haughtily  aloof  for  the  poverty  that  gnawed  at 
their  vitals*.  This  wilderness  was  so  gaunt,  so  parch 
ed  ;  she  closed  her  eyes  and  thought  of  a  bit  of  land 
scape  at  home.  A  young  forest  of  silver  beeches 
growing  straight  and  fine  as  the  threads  on  a  loom ; 
and  through  the  gray  perspective  of  their  satin- 
smooth  trunks  you  caught  the  white  gleam  of  a  fairy 
cascade  as  it  tumbled  over  the  moss-grown  stones 
to  the  brook  below.  It  was  like  a  bit  from  a  Jap 
anese  garden  in  its  delicate  artificiality. 

And  harder  to  leave  than  these  cherished  bits 
of  landscape  had  been  the  old  house  Runnymede, 
that  always  seemed  dozing  in  the  peaceful  comatose 
of  senility.  It  was  beyond  the  worry  of  debt;  the 
succession  of  mortgages  that  sapped  its  vitality  and 
wrote  anxious  lines  on  the  faces  of  Aunt  Adelaide 
and  Aunt  Martha  was  nothing  to  the  old  house.  Had 
it  not  sheltered  Carmichaels  for  over  a  century? 
— it  had  faith  in  the  name.  But  Mary  could  never 
remember  when  the  need  of  money  to  pay  the 
mortgage  had  not  invaded  the  gentle  routine  of 
their  home-life,  robbing  the  sangaree  of  its  delicate 
flavor  in  the  long,  sleepy  summer  afternoons,  in- 

34 


LEANDER    AND    HIS    LADY 

vading  the  very  dining-room,  an  unwelcome  guest  at 
the  old  mahogany  table,  prompting  Aunt  Adelaide 
to  cast  anxious  glances  at  the  worn  silver — would  it 
go  to  pay  that  blood-sucking  mortgage  next? 

But  hardest  of  all  to  leave  had  been  Archie,  best 
and  most  promising  of  young  brothers — Archie,  who 
had  come  out  ahead  of  his  class  in  the  high-school, 
all  ready  to  go  to  The  University — the  University 
of  Virginia  is  always  "The  University";  but  who, 
it  had  seemed  at  a  certain  dark  season,  must  give 
up  this  long-cherished  hope  for  lack  of  the  where 
withal.  Mary,  being  four  years  older  than  her 
brother  and  quite  twenty,  had  long  felt  a  mater 
nal  obligation  to  administer  his  affairs.  If  he  did 
not  go  to  the  university,  like  his  father  and  grand 
father  before  him,  it  would  be  because  she  had  failed 
in  her  duty.  At  this  particular  phase  of  the  do 
mestic  problem  there  had  appeared,  in  a  certain 
churchly  periodical,  a  carefully  worded  advertise 
ment  for  a  governess,  and  the  subsequent  business 
of  references,  salary,  and  information  to  be  im 
parted  and  received  proving  eminently  satisfactory, 
Mary  had  finally  received  a  tearful  permission  from 
her  aunts  to  depart  for  some  place  in  Wyoming,  the 
name  of  which  was  not  even  to  be  found  on  the  map. 
She  was  to  consider  herself  quite  one  of  the  family, 
and  the  compensation  was  to  be  fifty  dollars  a  month. 
Archie  would  now  be  able  to  go  to  "The  University." 

As  the  day  wore  on  the  sage  -  brush  became 
scarcer  and  grayer,  there  were  fewer  flowering  cacti, 
and  the  great  white  patches  of  alkali  grew  more  and 
more  frequent.  In  the  distance  there  was  a  riot 

35 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

of  rainbow  tints — violet,  pink,  and  pale  orange.  It 
seemed  inconceivable  that  such  barrenness  could 
produce  such  wealth  of  color;  nothing  could  have 
been  more  beautiful — not  even  the  changing  colors 
on  a  pigeon's  neck — than  the  coppery  iridescence, 
shading  to  cobalt  and  blue  on  some  of  the  buttes. 

Night  had  fallen  before  they  made  the  first  break 
in  their  journey.  The  low,  beetle-browed  cabin  that 
faced  them  in  the  wilderness  carried  in  its  rude 
completeness  a  hint  of  the  prestidigitateur's  art — • 
a  world  of  desolation,  and  behold  a  log  cabin  with 
smoke  issuing  from  the  chimney  and  curtains  at  the 
windows!  The  interior  was  unplastered,  but  this 
shortcoming  was  surmounted  by  tacking  cheese 
cloth  neatly  over  the  logs,  a  device  at  once  simple  and 
strategic,  as  in  the  lamplight  the  effect  was  that  of 
plaster.  Miss  Carmichael,  suddenly  released  from 
the  actual  rumbling  of  the  stage,  felt  its  confused 
motion  the  more  strongly  in  imagination,  and  hard 
ly  knew  whether  she  was  eating  canned  tomatoes, 
served  uncooked  directly  from  the  tin,  fried  steak, 
black  coffee,  and  soda  biscuit,  in  company  with  the 
fat  lady,  the  stage-driver,  and  the  woman  who  kept' 
the  road  ranch,  or  if  it  was  all  some  Alice  in  Won 
derland  delusion. 

The  fat  lady  had  brought  her  own  bedding  —  an 
apoplectic  roll  of  bedquilts — and  these  she  insist 
ed  on  making  a  bed  of,  despite  the  protests  of  the 
ranch -woman,  who  seemed  to  detect  a  covert  in 
sinuation  against  her  accommodations  in  the  prece 
dent.  Miss  Carmichael  profited  by  the  controversy. 
The  landlady,  touched  no  doubt  by  the  simple  faith 

36 


LEANDER    AND    HIS    LADY 

of  a  traveller  who  trusted  to  the  beds  of  a  road- 
ranch,  or  because  she  was  young  or  a  girl,  led  the 
way  in  triumph  to  her  own  bedroom,  and  indicating 
an  imposing  affair  with  pillow-shams,  she  defied  Miss 
Carmichael  to  find  a  more  comfortable  bed  "in  the 
East." 

In  the  unaccountable  manner  of  these  desert 
conveyances,  that  creak  and  groan  across  the  arid 
wastes  with  an  apparently  lumbering  inconsequence, 
the  stage  that  brought  the  travellers  to  the  Dax 
ranch  left  at  sunrise  to  pursue  a  seemingly  erratic 
career  along  the  North  Platte,  while  Miss  Carmichael 
and  the  fat  lady  were  to  continue  their  journey  with 
one  Lemuel  Chugg,  who  drove  a  stage  northward 
towards  the  Red  Desert,  when  he  was  sober  enough 
to  handle  the  ribbons. 

Breakfast  was  largely  devoted  to  speculation  re 
garding  the  approximate  condition  of  Mr.  Chugg — 
would  he  be  wholly  or  partially  incapacitated  for 
his  job?  Mrs.  Dax,  flirting  a  feather-duster  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Miss  Carmichael  in  a  futile  effort 
to  beguile  her  into  giving  a  reason  for  her  solitary 
journey  across  the  desert,  took  a  gloomy  view  of  the 
situation. 

But  Miss  Carmichael  kept  her  own  counsel.  Not 
so  the  fat  lady.  Falling  into  the  snare  ingenuously 
set  for  another,  she  divulged  her  name,  place  of 
residence,  and  the  object  of  her  travels,  which  was  to 
visit  a  son  on  Sweetwater.  Furthermore,  she  stated 
the  probable  cause  of  every  death  in  her  family  for 
the  past  thirty-five  years.  Miss  Carmichael  felt 
an  especial  interest  in  an  Uncle  Henry  who  "died 

37 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

of  a  Friday  along  of  eating  clams."  He  stood  out 
with  such  refreshing  vividness  against  a  back 
ground  of  neutralities  who  succumbed  to  consump 
tion,  bile  colic,  and  other  more  familiar  ailments 
of  the  patent -medicine  litany.  But  loquacity,  ap 
parently,  like  virtue,  is  its  own  reward,  for  the  land 
lady  scarce  vouchsafed  a  comment  on  this  dismal 
recitative,  while  Miss  Carmichael  remained  the  ob 
ject  of  her  persistent  attentions. 

But  there  seemed  to  be  no  topic  of  universal 
interest  but  Chugg's  condition,  Mrs.  Dax  finally 
asserting,  "Before  I'd  trust  my  precious  neck  to 
him,  I'd  get  Mr.  Dax  to  shoot  me." 

Meditating  on  this  Spartan  statement,  Mary  and 
the  fat  lady  became  aware  for  the  first  time  of  a 
subtle,  silent  force  in  the  domestic  economy.  But 
so  unobtrusive  was  this  influence  that  one  had  to 
scrutinize  very  closely,  indeed,  to  detect  the  evanes 
cent  personality  of  Mrs.  Dax's  husband.  Leander 
was  his  name,  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  he  swam  no 
Hellesponts  for  the  masterful  wife  of  his  bosom. 
Otherwise  he  was  slender,  willowy,  bald;  if  he  ever 
stood  straight  enough  to  get  the  habitually  apol 
ogetic  crooks  out  of  his  knees,  he  would  be  tall; 
but  so  in  the  habit  was  he  of  repressing  himself 
in  the  marital  presence  that  Leander  passed  for 
middle  height.  He  waited  on  the  table  at  break 
fast  with  the  dumb  submissiveness  of  a  trained  dog 
that  has  been  taught  to  give  pathetic  imitations  of 
human  servility.  But  no  sooner  had  his  lady  left 
the  room  than  Leander  began  quite  brazenly  to  call 
attention  to  himself  as  a  man  and  an  individual, 

38 


LEANDER   AND    HIS    LADY 

coughing,  rattling  his  dishes,  and  clearing  his  throat. 
Mary  and  the  fat  lady,  out  of  very  pity,  responded 
to  these  crude  signals  with  overtures  equally  frank, 
and  Leander  ventured  finally  to  inquire  if  they 
aimed  to  spend  the  night  at  his  brother's  ranch,  it 
being  the  next  mess-box  between  here  and  nowhere. 
They  admitted  that  his  brother's  ranch  was  their 
next  stopping  -  place,  and  Leander  went  through 
perfect  contortions,  of  apology  and  self-effacement 
before  he  could  bring  himself  to  ask  them  to  do  him 
a  favor.  It  would  have  taken  a  very  stern  order  of 
womankind  to  refuse  anything  so  abject,  and  they 
blindly  committed  themselves  to  the  pledge. 

"Tell  him  I  send  my  compliments,"  he  whispered, 
and,  looking  about  him  furtively,  he  repeated  the 
blood-curdling  request. 

"Is  that  all?"  sniffed  the  fat  lady,  at  no  pains  to 
conceal  her  disappointment. 

"It's  enough,  if  it  was  known,  to  raise  a  war- 
whoop  and  stampede  this  yere  family."  His  glance 
at  the  door  through  which  his  wife  had  disappeared 
was  pregnant  with  meaning. 

"Family  troubles?"  asked  the  fat  lady,  as  a 
gourmet  might  say  "Truffles." 

"Looks  like  it,"  said  Leander,  dismally.  "Me 
and  Johnnie  don't  ask  for  nothin'  better  than  to 
bask  in  each  other's  company;  but  our  wives  in 
sists  on  keepin'  up  the  manoeuvres  of  a  war-dance 
the  whole  endoorin'  time." 

"So,"  said  the  fat  lady,  as  a  gourmet  might  tell 
of  a  favorite  way  of  preparing  truffles,  "it's  a  case 
of  wives?" 

39 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

"Yes,  marm,  an'  teeth  an'  nails  an'  husbands 
thrown  in,  when  they  get  a  sight  of  each  other's 
petticoats." 

"I've  known  sisters-in-law  not  to  agree,"  helped 
on  the  fat  lady,  by  way  of  an  encouraging  parallel. 

"While  I  deplores  usin'  such  a  comparison  to  the 
refinin'  and  softenin'  inflooance  of  wimmen,  the 
meetin'  of  the  Dax  ladies  by  chanst  anywheres  has 
all  the  elements  of  danger  and  excitement  that  ac 
companies  an  Injun  uprisin'." 

The  travellers  looked  all  manner  of  encourage 
ment. 

"You  see,  my  wife's  a  great  housekeeper;  her 
talent  lies" — and  here  Leander  winked  knowingly — 
"in  managin'  the  help." 

"Land's  sake!"  interrupted  the  fat  lady.  "Why 
don't  you  kick?" 

Leander  sighed  softly.  "  I  tried  to  once.  As  an 
experiment  it  partook  of  the  trustfulness  of  a  mule 
kickin'  against  the  stony  walls  of  Badger  Canon. 
But  to  resoom  about  the  difficulties  that  split  the 
Dax  family.  Before  Johnnie  got  mislaid  in  that 
matrimonial  landslide  o'  his,  he  herds  with  us. 
Me  an'  him  does  the  work  of  this  yere  shack,  and 
my  wife  just  roominates  and  gives  her  accomplish 
ments  as  manager  full  play.  She  never  put  her 
hand  in  dirty  water  any  more  than  Mrs.  Cleveland 
sittin'  up  in  the  White  House  parlor.  Johnnie 
done  the  fancy  cookin';  he  could  make  a  pie  like 
any  one's  maw,  and  while  you  was  lost  to  the  world 
in  the  delights  of  masticatin'  it,  he'd  have  all  his 
greasy  dishes  washed  up  and  put  away — " 

40 


LEANDER    AND    HIS    LADY 

"No  wonder  she  hated  to  lose  a  man  like  that," 
interrupted  the  fat  lady,  feelingly. 

"But  he  took  to  pinin'  and  proclaimin'  that  he 
shore  was  a  lone  maverick,  and  he  just  stampeded 
round  lookin'  for  trouble  and  bleatin'  a  song  that 
'i  went: 

"  '  No  one  to  love, 
None  to  caress.' 

"Well,  the  lady  that  answers  his  signal  of  distress 
don't  bear  none  of  the  brands  of  this  yere  :ange. 
She  lives  back  East,  and  him  and  her  took  up 
their  claims  in  each  other's  affections  through  a 
matrimonial  paper  known  as  The  Heart  and  Hand. 
So  they  takes  their  pens  in  hand  and  gets  through 
a  hard  spell  of  courtin'  on  paper.  Love  plumb 
locoes  Johnnie.  His  spellin'  don't  suit  him,  his 
handwritin'  don't  suit  him,  his  natchral  letters  don't 
suit  him.  So  off  he  sends  to  Denver  for  all  the 
letter  -  writin'  books  he  can  buy  —  Handbook  of 
Correspondence,  The  Epistolary  Guide,  The  Ready 
Letter-Writer,  and  a  stack  more.  There's  no  denyin' 
it,  Johnnie  certainly  did  sweat  hisself  over  them 
letters." 

"Land's  sakes!"  said  the  fat  lady. 

"  Yes,  marm;  he  used  to  read  'em  to  me,  beginnin' 
how  he  had  just  seized  five  minutes  to  write  to  her, 
when  he'd  worked  the  whple  day  like  a  mule  over  it. 
She  seemed  to  like  the  brand,  an'  when  he  sent  her 
the  money  to  come  out  here  an'  get  married,  she 
come  as  straight  as  if  she  had  been  mailed  with  a 
postage-stamp." 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

"The  brazen  thing!"  said  the  fat  lady. 

"They  stopped  here,  goin'  home  to  their  place. 
My  Lord!  warn't  she  a  high-flyer!  She  done  her 
hair  like  a  tied-up  horse-tail— my  wife  called  it  a 
Sikey  knot-*-and  it  stood  out  a  foot  from  her  head. 
Some  of  the  boys,  kinder  playful,  wanted  to  throw 
a  hat  at  it  and  see  if  it  wouldn't  hang,  but  they 
refrained,  out  of  respect  to  the  feelin's  of  the  groom. 

"From  the  start,"  continued  Leander,  "the  two 
Mrs.  Daxes  just  hankered  to  get  at  each  other;  an' 
while  I,  as  a  slave  to  the  fair  sex" — here  he  bowed  to 
the  fax  lady  and  to  Miss  Carmichael — "hesitates  to 
use  such  langwidge  in  their  presence,  the  attitood 
of  them  two  female  wunmin  shorely  reminds  me  of 
a  couple  of  unfriendly  dawgs  just  hankerin'  to  chaw 
each  other. 

"At  first,  Johnnie  waited  on  her  hand  an'  foot, 
and  she  just  read  novels  and  played  stylish  all  the 
time  and  danced.  She  was  the  hardest  dancer  that 
ever  struck  this  yere  trail,  and  she  could  give  lessons 
to  any  old  war-dancin'  chief  up  to  the  reservation. 
No  dance  she  ever  heard  of  was  too  far  for  her  to  go 
to.  She  just  went  and  danced  till  broad  daylight. 
Many  a  man  would  have  took  to  dissipation,  in  his 
circumstances,  but  Johnnie  just  lost  heart  and  grew 
slatterly.  Why,  he'd  leave  his  dishes  go  from  one 
day  till  the  next—" 

"There's  more  as  would  leave  their  dishes  from 
one  day  till  the  next  if  they  wasn't  looked  after." 
And  the  wife  of  his  bosom  stood  in  the  door  like  a 
vengeful  household  goddess.  Mr.  Dax  made  a  grab 
for  the  nearest  plates. 

42 


IV 

JUDITH,  THE    POSTMISTRESS 

THE  arrival  of  Chugg's  stage  with  the  mail 
should  have  been  coincident  with  the  de 
parture  of  the  stage  that  brought  the  travellers 
from  "Town,"  but  Chugg  was  late  —  a  tardiness 
ascribed  to  indulgence  in  local  lethe  waters,  for 
Lemuel  Chugg  had  survived  a  romance  and  drank 
to  forget  that  woman  is  a  variable  and  a  changeable 
thing.  In  consequence  of  which  the  sober  stage- 
driver  departed  without  the  mails,  leaving  Mary 
Carmichael  and  the  fat  lady  to  scan  the  horizon 
for  the  delinquent  Chugg,  and  incidentally  to  hear 
a  chapter  of  prairie  romance. 

Some  sort  of  revolution  seemed  to  be  in  progress 
in  the  room  in  which  the  travellers  had  breakfasted. 
Mrs.  Dax  had  assumed  the  office  of  dictator,  with 
absolute  sway.  Leander,  as  aide-de-camp,  courier, 
and  staff,  executed  marvellous  feats  of  domestic 
engineering.  The  late  breakfast -table,  swept  and 
garnished  with  pigeon-holes,  became  a  United  States 
post-office,  prepared  to  transact  postal  business,  and 
for  the  time  being  to  become  the  social  centre  of 
the  surrounding  country. 

Down  the  yellow  road  that  climbed  and  dipped 
43 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

and  climbed  and  dipped  again  over  foot-hills   and 
sprawling  space  till  it  was  lost  in  a  world  without 
end,    Mary   Carmichael,  standing  in  the    doorway, 
watched  an  atom,  so  small  that  it  might  have  been  a 
leaf  blowing  along  in  the  wind,  turn  into  a  horseman. 
There  was  inspiration  for  a  hundred  pictures  in 
the  way  that  horse  was  ridden.     No  flashes  of  day 
light  between  saddle  and  rider  in  the  jolting,  Eastern 
fashion,  but  the  long,  easy  sweep  that  covers  ground 
imperceptibly  and  is  a  delight  to  the  eye.     It  need 
ed  but  the  solitary  figure  to  signify  the  infinitude  of 
space  in  the  background.     In  all  that  great,  wide 
world  the  only  hint  of  life  was  the  galloping  horse 
man,  the  only  sound  the  rhythmical  ring  of  the  near- 
ing  hoofs.     The  rider,  now  close  enough  for  Miss  Car 
michael  to  distinguish  the  features,  was  a  thorough 
dandy  of  the  saddle.     No  slouching  garb  of  exigence 
and  comfort  this,  but  a  pretty  display  of  doeskin 
gaiter,  varnished  boot,   and  smart  riding-breeches. 
The  lad — he  could  not  have  been,  Miss  Carmichael 
thought,  more  than  twenty — was  tanned  a  splendid 
color  not  unlike  the  bloomy  shading  on  a  nasturtium. 
And  when  the  doughty  horseman  made  out  the  girl 
standing  in  the  doorway,  he  smiled  with  a  lack  of 
formality  not   suggested  by  the  town -cut  of  his 
trappings.     Throwing  the  reins  over  the  neck  of  the 
horse  with  the  real  Western  fling,  he  slid  from  the 
saddle  in  a  trice,  and — Mary  Carmichael  experienced 
something  of  the  gasping  horror  of  a  shocked* old 
lady  as  she  made  out  two  splendid  braids  of  thick, 
black  hair.     Her  doughty  cavalier  was  no  cavalier 
at  all,  but  a  surprisingly  handsome  young  woman. 

44 


JUDITH,    THE    POSTMISTRESS 

Miss  Carmichael  gasped  a  little  even  as  she  ex 
tended  her  hand,  for  the  masquerader  had  pulled 
off  her  gauntlet  and  held  out  hers  as  if  she  was  con 
ferring  the  freedom  of  the  wilderness.  It  was 
impossible  for  a  homesick  girl  not  to  respond  to 
such  heartiness,  though  it  was  with  difficulty  at  first 
that  Mary  kej  t  her  eyes  on  the  girl's  face.  Curiosity, 
agreeably  piqued,  urged  her  to  take  another  glimpse 
of  the  riding  clothes  that  this  young  woman  wore 
with  such  supreme  unconcern. 

Now,  "in  the  East  "  Mary  Carmichael  had  not  been 
in  the  habit  of  meeting  black-haired  goddesses  who 
rode  astride  and  whose  assurance  of  the  pleasure 
of  meeting  her  made  her  as  self-conscious  as  on  her 
first  day  at  dancing -school;  and  though  she  tried 
to  prove  her  cosmopolitanism  by  not  betraying  this, 
the  attempt  was  rather  a  failure. 

"Are  you  surprised  that  I  did  not  wait  for  an 
introduction?"  the  girl  in  the  riding  clothes  asked, 
noticing  Mary's  evident  uneasiness;  "but  you  don't 
know  how  good  it  is  to  see  a  girl.  I'm  so  tired  of 
spurs  and  sombreros  and  cattle  and  dust  and  dis 
tance,  and  there's  nothing  else  here." 

"Where  I  come  from  it's  just  the  other  way — too 
many  petticoats  and  hat -pins." 

The  horseman  who  was  no  horseman  dropped 
Miss  Carmichael's  hand  and  went  into  the  house. 
Mary  wondered  if  she  ought  to  have  been  more 
cordial. 

From  the  back  door  came  Leander,  with  dish 
cloths,  which  he  began  to  hang  on  the  line  in  a  dumb, 
driven  sort  of  way. 

4  45 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

"Who  is  she?"  asked  Mary. 

"Her?"  he  interrogated,  jerking  his  head  in  the 
direction  of  the  house.  "The  postmistress,  Judith 
Rodney;  yes,  that's  her  name."  He  dropped  his 
voice  in  the  manner  of  one  imparting  momentous 
things.  "She  never  wears  a  skirt  ridin',  any  more 
than  a  man." 

Mary  felt  that  she  was  tempting  Leander  into  the 
paths  of  gossip,  undoubtedly  his  besetting  sin,  but 
she  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  linger.  He 
had  disposed  of  his  last  dish-cloth,  and  he  withdrew 
the  remaining  clothes-pin  from  his  mouth  in  a  way 
that  was  pathetically  feminine. 

"She  keeps  the  post-office  here,  since  Mrs.  Dax 
lost  the  job,  and  boards  with  us;  p'r'aps  it's  because 
she  is  my  wife's  successor  in  office,  or  p'a'ps  it's  jest 
the  natural  grudge  that  wimmin  seem  to  harbor 
agin  each  other,  I  dunno,  but  they  don't  sandwich 
none." 

Leander  having  disposed  of  his  last  dish-towel, 
squinted  at  it  through  his  half -closed  eyes,  like  an 
artist  "sighting"  a  landscape,  saw  apparently  that 
it  was  in  drawing,  and  next  brought  his  vision  to 
bear  on  the  back  premises  of  his  own  dwelling, 
where  he  saw  there  was  no  wifely  figure  in  evidence. 

"Sh-sh-h!"  he  said,  creeping  towards  Mary,  his 
dull  face  transfigured  with  the  consciousness  that  he 
had  news  to  tell.  "Sh-sh — her  brother's  a  rustler. 
If  'twan't  for  her" — Leander  went  through  the 
grewsome  pantomime  of  tying  an  imaginary  rope 
round  his  neck  and  throwing  it  over  the  limb  of  an 
imaginary  tree.  "They're  goin'  to  get  him  for  shore 

46 


JUDITH,    THE    POSTMISTRESS 

this  time,  soon  as  he  comes  out  of  jail;  but  would 
you  guess  it  from  her  bluff?" 

There  was  no  mistaking  the  fate  of  a  rustler  after 
Mr.  Dax's  grisly  demonstration,  but  of  the  quality 
of  his  calling  Mary  was  as  ignorant  as  before. 

"And  why  should  they  do  that?"  she  inquired, 
with  tenderfoot  simplicity. 

"Stealin'  cattle  ain't  good  for  the  health  here 
abouts,"  said  Leander,  as  one  who  spoke  with 
authority.  "It's  apt  to  bring  on  throat  trouble." 

But  Mary  did  not  find  Leander 's  joke  amusing. 
She  had  suddenly  remembered  the  pale,  gaunt  man 
who  had  walked  into  the  eating-house  the  previous 
morning  and  walked  out  again,  his  errand  turned 
into  farce-comedy  by  the  cowardice  of  an  unworthy 
antagonist.  The  pale  man's  grievance  had  had  to 
do  with  sheep  and  cattle.  His  name  had  been 
Rodney,  too.  She  understood  now.  He  was  Judith 
Rodney's  brother,  and  he  was  in  danger  of  being 
hanged.  Mary  Carmichael  felt  first  the  admiration 
of  a  girl,  then  the  pity  of  a  woman,  for  the  brave 
young  creature  who  so  stoutly  carried  so  un 
speakable  a  burden.  But  she  could  not  speak  of 
her  new  knowledge  to  Leander. 

She  glanced  towards  this  childlike  person  and 
saw  from  his  stealthy  manner  that  he  had  more  to 
impart.  He  walked  towards  the  kitchen  door,  saw 
no  one,  and  came  back  to  Mary. 

"There  ain't  a  man  in  this  Gawd-forsaken  country 
wouldn't  lope  at  the  chance  to  die  for  her — but  the 
women!"  Leander 's  pantomimic  indication  of  ab 
solute  feminine  antagonism  was  conclusive. 

47 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

"The  wimmin  treats  her  scabby — just  scabby. 
Don't  you  go  to  thinkin'  she  ain't  a  good  girl  on 
that  account";  and  something  like  an  attitude  of 
chivalrous  protection  straightened  the  apologetic 
crook  in  his  craven  outline. 

"She's  good,  just  good,  and  when  a  woman's  that 
there's  no  use  in  sayin'  it  any  more  fanciful.  As  I 
says  to  my  wife,  every  time  she  give  me  a  chance, 
'If  Judy  wasn't  a  good  girl  these  boys  about  here 
would  just  natchrally  become  extinct  shootin'  each 
other  upon  account  of  her.'  But  she  don't  favor 
none  enough  to  cause  trouble." 

"Are  the  women  jealous  of  her?" 

"  It's  her  independence  that  riles  'em.  They  take 
on  awful  about  her  ridin'  in  pants,  an'  it  certainly 
is  a  heap  more  modest  than  ridin'  straddle  in  a 
hitched  up  caliker  skirt,  same  as  some  of  them  do." 

"And  do  all  the  women  out  here  ride  astride?" 
Mary  gasped. 

"A  good  many  does,  when  you  ain't  watchin'; 
horses  in  these  parts  ain't  broke  for  no  such  lop 
sided  foolishness  as  side-saddles.  But  you  see  she 
does  it  becomin',  and  that's  where  the  grudge 
comes  in.  You  can't  stir  about  these  foot-hills  with 
out  coming  across  a  woman,  like  as  not,  holdin'  on 
to  a  posse  of  kids,  and  ridin'  clothes-pin  fashion  in  a 
looped-up  skirt;  when  she  sees  you  comin'  she'll 
p'r'aps  upset  a  kid  or  two  assoomin'  a  decorous 
attitood.  That's  feemim'ntf,  and  as  such  is  approved 
by  the  ladies,  but  " — and  here  Leander  put  his  head 
on  one  side  and  gave  a  grotesque  impression  of  out 
raged  decorum — "pants  is  considered  unwomanly." 

48 


JUDITH,    THE    POSTMISTRESS 

"Leander!  Leander!"  came  in  accusing  accents 
from  the  kitchen. 

"Run!"  gasped  Mrs.  Dax's  handmaiden;  "don't 
let  her  catch  us  chinnin'." 

Mary  Carmichael  ran  round  one  side  of  the  house 
as  she  was  bidden,  but,  like  Lot's  wife,  could  not 
resist  the  temptation  of  looking  back.  Leander, 
with  incredible  rapidity,  grabbed  two  clothes-pins 
off  the  line,  clutched  a  dish-towel,  shook  it.  "  Comin' ! 
comin'!"  he  called,  as  he  went  through  the  farce  of 
r changing  it. 

The  lonesomeness  of  plain  and  foot-hill,  the  utter 
lack  of  the  human  element  that  gives  to  this  coun 
try  its  character  of  penetrating  desolation.,  had  been 
changed  while  Mary  Carmichael  forgathered  with 
Leander  by  the  clothes-line.  From  the  four  quar 
ters  of  the  compass,  men  in  sombreros,  flannel 
shirts,  and  all  manner  of  strange  habiliments  came 
galloping  over  the  roads  as  if  their  horses  were  as 
keen  on  reaching  Dax's  as  their  riders.  They  came 
towards  the  house  at  full  tilt,  their  horses  stretching 
flat  with  ears  laid  back  viciously,  and  Mary,  who 
was  unused  to  the  tricks  of  cow-ponies,  expected  to 
see  them  ride  through  the  front  door,  merely  by  way 
of  demonstrating  their  sense  of  humor.  Not  so ;  the 
little  pint os,  buckskins,  bays,  and  chestnuts  dashed 
to  the  door  and  stopped  short  in  a  full  gallop;  as  a 
bit  of  staccato  equestrianism  it  was  superb. 

And  then  the  wherefore  of  all  this  dashing  horse 
manship,  this  curveting,  prancing,  galloping  revival 
of  knightly  tourney  effects  was  apparent — Judith 
Rodney  had  opened  post-office.  She  had  changed 

49 


JUDITH    OP   THE    PLAINS 

her  riding  clothes ;  or,  rather,  that  portion  of  them  to 
which  the  ladies  took  exception  was  now  concealed 
by  a  long,  black  skirt.  Her  wonderful  braids  of 
black  hair  had  been  twisted  high  on  her  head.  She 
was  well  worth  a  trip  across  the  alkali  wastes  to 
see.  The  room  was  packed  with  men.  One  un 
consciously  got  the  impression  that  a  fire,  a  fight,  or 
some  crowd  -  collecting  casualty  had  happened. 
Above  the  continual  clinking  of  spurs  there  arose 
every  idiom  and  peculiarity  of  speech  of  which  these 
United  States  are  capable.  There  is  no  Western 
dialect,  properly  speaking.  Men  bring  their  modes 
of  expression  with  them  from  Maine  or  Minnesota, 
as  the  case  may  be,  but  their  figures  of  speech,  which 
give  an  essential  picturesqueness  to  their  language, 
are  almost  entirely  local — the  cattle  and  sheep 
industries,  prospecting,  the  Indians,  poker,  faro, 
the  dance-halls,  all  contribute  their  printable  or  un 
printable  embellishment. 

Judith  managed  them  all — cow-punchers,  sheep  - 
herders,  prospectors,  freighters — with  an  impersonal 
skill  that  suggested  a  little  solitary  exercise  in  the 
bowling-alley.  The  ten-pins  took  their  tumbles  in 
good  part — no  one  could  congratulate  himself  on 
escaping  the  levelling  ball — and  where  there's  a 
universal  lack  of  luck,  doubtless  also  there  will  be 
found  a  sort  of  grim  fellowship. 

That  they  were  all  more  or  less  in  love  with  her 
there  could  be  no  doubt.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
Judith  Rodney  did  not  depend  on  the  scarcity  of 
women  in  the  desert  for  her  pre-eminence  in  the  in 
terests  of  this  hot-headed  group.  Her  personality — 

5° 


JUDITH,    THE    POSTMISTRESS 

and  through  no  conscious  effort  of  hers — would  have 
been  pre-eminent  anywhere.  As  it  was,  in  this 
woman-forsaken  wilderness  she  might  have  stirred 
up  a  modern  edition  of  the  Trojan  war  at  any 
moment.  That  she  did  not,  despite  the  lurking 
suggestion  of  temptation  written  all  over  her, 
brought  back  the  words  of  Leander:  "If  Judy 
wasn't  a  good  girl,  these  boys  would  just  nacherally 
become  extinct  shooting  each  other  upon  account 
of  her." 

And  yet  what  a  woman  she  was!  It  struck  Miss 
Carmichael,  as  she  watched  Judith  hold  these  war 
ring  elements  in  the  hollow  of  her  hand,  that  her 
interest  might  be  due  to  a  certain  temperamental 
fusion;  that  there  might  lie,  at  the  essence  of  her 
being,  a  subtle  combination  of  saint  and  devil.  One 
could  fancy  her  leading  an  army  on  a  crusade  or 
provoking  a  bar  -  room  brawl.  The  challenging 
quality  of  her  beauty,  the  vividness  of  color,  the 
suggestion  of  endurance  and  radiating  health  in 
every  line,  were  comparable  to  the  great  primeval 
forces  about  her.  She  was  cast  to  be  the  mother 
of  men  of  brawn  and  muscle,  who  would  make  this 
vast,  unclaimed  wilderness  subject  to  them. 

At  present  neither  pole  of  her  character,  as  it 
had  been  hastily  estimated,  was  even  remotely 
suggested.  The  atmosphere  in  the  post-office  was, 
considering  the  potential  violence  of  its  visitors, 
singularly  calm.  And  Judith,  feeding  these  wild 
border  lads  on  scraps  of  chaff  and  banter,  and  re 
taining  their  absolute  loyalty,  was  a  sight  worth 
seeing.  She  had  the  alertness  of  a  lion  -  tamer 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

locked  in  a  cage  with  the  lords  of  the  jungle;  the 
rashly  confident  she  humbled,  the  meek  she  exalted, 
and  all  with  such  genuine  good-fellowship,  such 
an  absence  of  coquetry  in  the  genial  game  of  give 
and  take,  that  one  ceased  to  wonder  at  even  the 
devotion  of  Leander.  And  since  they  were  to  her, 
on  her  own  confession,  but  "spurs  and  sombreros," 
one  wondered  at  the  elaboration  of  the  comedy,  the 
endless  wire-pulling  in  the  manipulation  of  these 
most  picturesque  marionettes  —  until  one  remem 
bered  the  outlaw  brother  and  felt  that  what  she  did 
she  did  for  him. 

"You  right  shore  there  ain't  a  letter  for  me, 
Miss  Judith.  My  creditors  are  pretty  faithful  'bout 
bearing  me  in  mind."  It  was  the  third  time  that 
the  big,  shambling  Texan  who  had  been  one  of  the 
company  at  Mrs.  Clark's  eating-house  had  inquired 
for  mail,  and  seemed  so  embarrassed  by  his  own 
bulk  that  he  moved  cautiously,  as  if  he  might  step 
on  a  fellow-creature  and  maim  him.  Each  time  he 
had  asked  for  a  letter  he  took  his  place  at  the  end 
of  the  waiting-line  and  patiently  bided  his  time  for 
the  chance  of  an  extra  word  with  the  postmistress. 

"They've  begun  to  lose  hope,  Texas." 

She  shuffled  the  letters  impartially,  as  a  goddess 
dispensing  fate,  and  barely  glanced  at  the  man  who 
had  ridden  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  across  sand  and 
cactus  to  see  her. 

"That's  the  difference  between  them  and  me." 
There  was  a  grim  finality  in  his  tone. 

"What,  you're  going  to  take  your  place  at  the  end 
of  that  line  again!  I'll  try  and  find  you  a  circular." 


JUDITH,    THE    POSTMISTRESS 

He  tried  to  look  at  her  angrily,  but  she  smiled 
at  him  with  such  good-fellowship  that  he  went  off 
singing  significantly  that  universal  anthem  of  the 
cow-puncher  the  West  over: 

4 'Oh,  bury  me  not  on  the  lone  prairie, 
In  a  narrow  grave  just  six  by  three, 
Where  the  wild  coyotes  will  howl  o'er  me. 
Oh,  bury  me  not  on  the  lone  prairie." 

"Ain't  there  a  love  letter  for  me?"  The  young 
man  who  inquired  seemed  to  belong  to  a  different 
race  from  these  bronzed  squires  of  the  saddle.  He 
suggested  over-crowded  excursion  boats  on  Sunday 
afternoons  in  swarming  Eastern  cities.  He  button 
holed  every  one  and  explained  his  presence  in  the 
West  on  the  score  of  his  health,  as  though  leaving 
his  native  asphalt  were  a  thing  that  demanded 
apology. 

"Yes,"  answered  the  postmistress,  with  a  real 
motherly  note,  "here  is  one  from  Hugous  &  Co." 

A  roar  went  up  at  this,  and  the  blushing  tender 
foot  pocketed  his  third  bill  for  the  most  theatrical 
style  of  Mexican  sombrero;  it  had  a  brass  snake 
coiled  round  the  crown  for  a  hat -band,  and  a  cow- 
puncher  in  good  and  regular  standing  would  have 
preferred  going  bareheaded  to  wearing  it. 

"She  seems  to  be  pressing  her  suit,  son;  you 
better  name  the  day,"  one  of  the  loungers  sug 
gested. 

"The  blamed  thing  ain't  worth  twenty-five 
dollars,"  the  young  man  from  the  East  declared. 
A  conspicuous  silence  followed.  It  seemed  to 

53 


JUDITH   OP   THE    PLAINS 

irritate  the  owner  of  the  hat  that  no  one  would 
defend  it.  "It  ain't  worth  it,"  he  repeated. 

"I  think  you  allowed  you  was  out  here  for  your 
health?"  the  big  Texan,  who  had  returned  from 
the  corral,  inquired. 

"Betcher  life,"  swaggered  the  man  with  the  hat, 
"N'York's  good  enough  for  me." 

"But" — and  the  Texan  smiled  sweetly  —  "the 
man  who  sold  you  the  hat  ain't  out  here  for 
his." 

Judith  hid  her  head  and  stamped  letters.  The 
boys  were  suspiciously  quiet,  then  some  one  began 
to  chant: 

"The  devil  examined  the  desert  well, 
And  made  up  his  mind  'twas  too  dry  for  hell; 
He  put  up  the  prices  his  pockets  to  swell, 
And  called  it  a — heal-th  resort." 

The  postmistress  waited  for  the  last  note  of  the 
chorus  to  die  away,  and  read  from  a  package  she 
held  in  her  hand — "'Mrs.  Henry  Lee,  Deer  Lodge, 
Wyoming.'  Well,  Henry,  here's  a  wedding-present, 
I  guess.  And  my  congratulations,  though  you've 
hardly  treated  us  well  in  never  saying  a  word." 

The  unfortunate  Henry,  who  hadn't  even  a  sweet 
heart,  and  who  was  noted  as  the  shyest  man  in  the 
"Goose  Creek  Outfit,"  had  to  submit  to  the  mock 
congratulations  of  every  man  in  the  room  and 
promise  to  set  up  the  drinks  later. 

"I  never  felt  we'd  keep  you  long,  son;  them 
golden  curls  seldom  gets  a  chance  to  ripen  singly." 

"Shoshone  squaw,  did  you  say  she  was,  Henry? 
54 


JUDITH,    THE    POSTMISTRESS 

They  ain't  much  for  looks,  but  there's  a  heep  of 
wear  to  'em." 

"Oh,  go  on,  now;  you  fellows  know  I  ain't 
married."  And  the  boy  handled  the  package  with 
a  sort  of  dumb  wonder,  as  if  the  superscrip 
tion  were  indisputable  evidence  of  a  wife's  ex 
istence. 

"Open  it,  Henry;  you  shore  don't  harbor  senti 
ments  of  curiosity  regarding  the  post-office  dealings 
of  your  lady." 

"Now,  old  man,  this  here  may  be  grounds  for 
divorce." 

"See  what  the  other  fellow's  sending  your  wife." 

Henry,  badgered,  jostled,  the  target  of  many  a 
homely  witticism,  finally  opened  the  package,  which 
proved  to  be  a  sample  bottle  of  baby  food.  At 
sight  of  it  they  howled  like  Apaches,  and  Henry  was 
again  forced  to  receive  their  congratulations.  Judith, 
who  had  been  an  interested  on -looker  without  join 
ing  in  the  merriment,  now  detected  in  the  tenor  of 
their  humor  a  tendency  towards  breadth.  In  an  in 
stant  her  manner  was  official ;  rapping  the  table  with 
her  mailing-stamp,  she  announced: 

"Boys,  this  post-office  closes  in  ten  minutes,  if 
you  want  to  buy  any  stamps." 

The  silence  following  this  statement  on  the  part 
of  the  postmistress  was  instantaneous.  Henry  took 
his  mirth-provoking  package  and  went  his  way ;  some 
of  the  more  hilariously  inclined  followed  him.  The 
remainder  confined  themselves  absolutely  to  busi 
ness,  scrawling  postal-cards  or  reading  their  mail. 
The  pounce  of  the  official  stamp  on  the  letters,  as 

55 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

the  postmistress  checked  them  off  for  the  mail-bag, 
was  the  only  sound  in  the  hot  stillness. 

A  heavily  built  man,  older  than  those  who  had 
been  keeping  the  post-office  lively,  now  took  ad 
vantage  of  the  lull  to  approach  Judith.  He  had  a 
twinkling  face,  all  circles  and  pouches,  but  it  grew 
graver  as  he  spoke  to  the  postmistress.  He  was 
Major  Atkins,  formerly  a  famous  cavalry  officer,  but 
since  his  retirement  a  cattle-man  whose  herds  grazed 
to  the  pan-handle  of  Texas.  As  he  took  his  mail, 
talking  meantime  of  politics,  of  the  heat,  of  the  lack 
of  water,  in  the  loud  voice  for  which  he  was  famous, 
he  managed,  with  clumsy  diplomacy,  to  interject  a 
word  or  two  for  her  own  ear  alone. 

"Jim's  out,"  he  conveyed  to  her,  in  a  successfully 
muffled  tone.  "He's  out,  and  they're  after  him, 
hot.  Get  him  out  of  the  State,  Judy — get  him  out, 
quick.  He  tried  to  kill  Simpson  at  Mrs.  Clark's,  in 
town,  yesterday.  The  little  Eastern  girl  that's  here 
will  tell  you."  Then  the  major  was  gone  before 
Judith  could  perfectly  realize  the  significance  of 
what  he  had  told  her. 

She  threw  back  her  head  and  the  pulse  in  her 
throat  beat.  Like  a  wild  forest  thing,  at  the  first 
warning  sound,  she  considered:  "Was  it  time  for 
flight? — or  was  the  warning  but  the  crackling  of  a 
twig?  Major  Atkins  was  a  cattle-man:  her  brother 
hated  all  cattle-men.  How  disinterested  had  been 
the  major's  warning!  He  had  always  been  her 
friend.  Mrs.  Atkins  had  been  one  of  the  ladies  at 
the  post  who  had  helped  to  send  her  to  school  to 
the  nuns  at  Santa  Fe".  She  despised  herself  for 

56 


JUDITH,    THE    POSTMISTRESS 

doubting;  yet  these  were  troublous  times,  and  all 
was  fair  between  sheep  and  cattle-men.  Major 
Atkins  had  spoken  of  the  Eastern  girl;  then  that 
pretty,  little,  curly  -  haired  creature,  whom  Judith 
had  found  standing  in  the  sunshine,  had  seen  Jim 
— had  heard  him  threaten  to  kill.  Should  she  ask 
her  about  it — consult  her?  Judith's  training  was  not 
one  to  impel  her  to  give  her  confidence  to  strangers, 
still  she  had  liked  the  little  Eastern  girl. 

These  were  the  perplexities  that  beset  her,  sweep 
ing  her  thoughts  hither  and  thither,  as  sea- weed  is 
swept  by  the  wash  of  the  waves.  She  strove  to  col 
lect  her  faculties.  How  should  she  rid  the  house  of 
her  cavaliers  ?  She  had  regularly  to  refuse  some  half- 
dozen  of  them  each  day  that  she  kept  post-office. 

In  a  few  minutes  more  the  group  in  the  post- 
office  began  to  disperse  under  the  skilful  manipula 
tion  of  the  postmistress.  To  some  she  sold  stamps, 
with  an  air  of  "God  speed  you,"  and  they  were 
soon  but  dwindling  specks  on  the  horizon.  To 
others  she  implied  such  friendly  farewells  that  there 
was  nothing  to  do  but  betake  themselves  to  their 
saddles.  Others  had  compromised  with  the  saloon 
opposite,  and  their  roaring  mirth  came  in  snatches 
of  song  and  shouts  of  laughter.  She  fastened  up 
the  little  pile  of  letters  that  had  remained  uncalled 
for  with  what  seemed  a  deliberate  slowness.  Each 
time  any  one  entered  the  room  she  looked  up — then 
the  hope  died  hard  in  her  face.  Leander  came  in 
with  catlike  tread  and  removed  the  pigeon  -  holes 
from  the  table.  The  post-office  was  closed.  Family 
life  had  been  resumed  at  the  Daxes', 

57 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

Judith  left  the  room  and  stood  in  the  blinding 
sunlight,  basking  in  it  as  if  she  were  cold.  The 
mercury  must  have  stood  close  to  a  hundred,  and 
she  was  hatless.  There  was  no  trace  of  her  ebullient 
spirits  of  the  morning.  Her  head  was  sunk  on  her 
breast  and  she  held  her  hands  with  locked  fingers 
behind  her.  It  was  hot,  hot  as  the  breaths  of  a 
thousand  belching  furnaces.  A  white,  burning  glare 
had  spread  itself  from  horizon  to  horizon,  and  the 
earth  wrinkled  and  cracked  beneath  it.  From 
every  corner  of  this  parched  wilderness  came  an 
ominous  whirring,  like  the  last  wheezing  gasp  of  an 
alarm-clock  before  striking  the  hour.  This  menacing 
orchestration  was  nothing  more  or  less  than  millions 
of  grasshoppers  rasping  legs  and  wings  together  in 
hoarse  appreciation  of  the  heat  and  glare;  but  it 
had  a  sound  that  boded  evil.  Again  and  again  she 
turned  towards  the  yellow  road  as  it  dipped  over 
the  hills ;  but  there  was  never  a  glimpse  of  a  horse 
man  from  that  direction. 


THE   TRAIL  OF   SENTIMENT 

WITHIN  the  house  the  travellers  had  disposed 
themselves  in  a  repressed  and  melancholy 
circle  that  suggested  the  suspended  animation  of  a 
funeral  gathering.  The  fat  lady  had  turned  back 
her  skirt  to  save  her  travelling  dress.  The  stage 
was  late,  and  there  was  no  good  and  sufficient  rea 
son  for  wearing  it  out.  A  similar  consideration  of 
economy  led  her  to  flirt  off  flies  with  her  second  best 
pocket-handkerchief.  Mrs.  Dax  presided  over  the 
gathering  with  awful  severity.  Every  one  truckled 
to  her  shamefully,  receiving  her  lightest  remarks  as 
if  they  were  to  be  inscribed  on  tablets  of  bronze. 
Leander,  his  eyes  bright  with  excitement  at  being 
received  in  the  family  circle  on  an  equal  footing, 
balanced  perilously  on  the  edge  of  his  chair,  an 
ticipating  dismissal. 

"Chugg's  never  ben  so  late  as  this,"  said  Mrs. 
Dax,  rocking  herself  furiously.  She  strongly  re 
sembled  one  of  those  mottled  chargers  of  the  nur 
sery  whose  flaunting  nostrils  seem  forever  on  the 
point  of  sending  forth  flame.  Leander,  the  fat 
lady,  and  Miss  Carmichael  meekly  murmured  assent 
and  condemnation. 

59 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

"And  there  ain't  a  sign  of  him,"  said  Mrs.  Dax, 
returning  to  the  house  after  straining  the  landscape 
through  her  all-observant  eye,  and  not  detecting  him 
in  any  of  the  remote  pin-pricks  on  the  horizon,  in 
which  these  plainsfolk  invariably  decipher  a  herd 
of  antelope,  an  elk  or  two,  or  a  horseman. 

"Bet  he  had  a  woman  in  the  stage  and  upset  it 
with  her,"  said  Leander,  in  the  animated  manner 
of  a  poor  relation  currying  favor  with  a  bit  of  news. 

Mrs.  Dax  regarded  him  severely  for  a  moment, 
then  conspicuously  addressed  her  next  remark  to 
the  ladies.  "  Bet  he  had  a  woman  in  the  stage,  the 
old  scoundrel!" 

"Wonder  who  she  was?"  said  Leander,  with  the 
sparkling  triumph  of  a  poor  relation  whose  surmise 
had  been  accepted.  But  Mrs.  Dax  had  evidently 
decided  that  Leander  had  gone  far  enough. 

"Was  you  expectin'  any  of  your  lady  friends  by 
Chugg's  stage  that  you  are  so  frettin'  anxious?"  she 
inquired,  and  the  poor  relation  collapsed  miserably. 

"You've  heard  about  Chugg's  goin'  on  since 
'Mountain  Pink'  jilted  him?"  inquired  Mrs.  Dax 
of  the  fat  lady,  as  the  only  one  of  the  party  who 
might  have  kept  abreast  with  the  social  chronicles 
of  the  neighborhood. 

"My  land,  yes,"  responded  the  fat  lady,  proud 
to  be  regarded  as  socially  cognizant.  "M'  son  says 
he's  plumb  locoed  about  it — didn't  want  me  to  travel 
by  his  stage.  But  I  said  he  dassent  upset  a  woman 
of  my  age — he  just  nacherally  dassent!" 

Miss  Carmichael,  by  dint  of  patient  inquiry,  final 
ly  got  the  story  which  was  popularly  supposed  to 

60 


THE    TRAIL    OF    SENTIMENT 

account  for  the  misdemeanors  of  the  stage-driver, 
including  his  present  delinquency  that  was  delaying 
them  on  their  journey. 

It  appeared  that  Lemuel  Chugg,  then  writhing 
in  the  coils  of  perverse  romance,  was  among  the 
last  of  those  famous  old  stage-drivers  whose  talents 
combined  skill  at  handling  the  ribbons  with  the 
diplomacy  necessary  to  treat  with  a  masked  envoy 
on  the  road.  His  luck  in  these  encounters  was 
proverbial,  and  many  were  the  hair-breadth  escapes 
due  to  Chugg's  ready  wit  and  quick  aim;  and,  to 
quote  Leander,  "while  he  had  been  shot  as  full  of 
holes  as  a  salt-shaker,  there  was  a  lot  of  fight  in  the 
old  man  yet." 

Chugg  had  had  no  loves,  no  hates,  no  virtues,  no 
genial  vices  after  the  manner  of  these  frontiersmen. 
Avarice  had  warmed  the  cockles  of  his  heart,  and  the 
fetish  he  prayed  to  was  an  old  gray  woollen  stocking, 
stuffed  so  full  of  twenty-dollar  gold  pieces  that  it 
presented  the  bulbous  appearance  of  the  "before 
treatment"  view  of  a  chiropodist's  sign.  This 
darling  of  his  old  age  had  been  waxing  fat  since 
Chugg's  earliest  manhood.  It  had  been  his  only 
love — till  he  met  Mountain  Pink. 

Mountain  Pink's  husband  kept  a  road -ranch 
somewhere  on  Chugg's  stage-route.  She  was  of  a 
buxom  type  whose  red-and-white  complexion  had 
not  yet  surrendered  to  the  winds,  the  biting  dust, 
and  the  alkali  water.  Furthermore,  she  could  "bring 
about  a  dried-apple  pie"  to  make  a  man  forget  the 
cooking  of  his  mother.  Great  was  the  havoc  wrought 
by  Mountain  Pink's  pies  and  complexion,  but  she 
5  61 


JUDITH    OP    THE    PLAINS 

followed  the  decorous  precedent  of  Caesar's  wife,  and, 
like  her  pastry,  remained  above  suspicion. 

Her  husband,  whose  name  was  Jim  Bosky,  seemed, 
to  the  self -impanelled  jury  that  spent  its  time  sitting 
on  the  case,  singularly  insensible  to  his  own  ad 
vantages.  Not  only  did  he  fail  to  take  a  proper 
pride  in  her  beauty,  but  there  were  dark  hints 
abroad  that  he  had  never  tasted  one  of  her  pies. 
When  delicately  questioned  on  this  point,  at  that 
stage  of  liquid  refreshment  that  makes  these  lit 
tle  personalities  not  impossible,  Bosky  had  grimly 
quoted  the  dearth  of  shoes  among  shoe-makers* 
children. 

Whatever  were  the  facts  of  the  case,  Mountain 
Pink  got  the  sympathy  that  might  have  been  ex 
pected  in  a  section  of  the  country  where  the  ratio 
of  the  sexes  is  fifty  to  one.  Chugg,  eating  her  pies 
regularly  once  a  week  on  his  stage-route,  said 
nothing,  but  he  presented  her  with  a  red  plush 
photograph  album  with  oxidized  silver  clasps,  and 
by  this  first  reckless  expenditure  of  money  in  the 
life  of  Chugg,  Natrona,  Johnson,  Converse,  and  Sweet- 
water  counties  knew  that  Cupid  had  at  last  found 
a  vulnerable  spot  in  the  tough  and  weather-tanned 
hide  of  the  old  stage-driver. 

Nor  did  Cupid  stop  here  with  his  pranks.  Having 
inoculated  the  stage-driver  with  the  virus  of  ro 
mance,  madness  began  to  work  in  the  veins  of 
Chugg.  He  presented  Mountain  Pink  with  the 
gray  woollen  stocking — not  extracting  a  single  coin 
— and  urged  her  to  get  a  divorce  from  the  clodlike 
man  who  had  never  appreciated  her  and  marry  him. 

62 


THE    TRAIL   OF    SENTIMENT 

Mountain  Pink  coyly  took  the  stocking  so 
generously  given  for  the  divorce  and  subsequent 
trousseau,  and  Chugg  continued  to  drive  his  stage 
with  an  Apollo-like  abandon,  whistling  love-songs 
the  while. 

Coincident  with  Mountain  Pink's  disappearance 
Dakotaward,  in  the  interests  of  freedom,  went  also 
one  Bob  Catlin,  a  mule-wrangler.  Bosky,  with  con 
spicuous  pessimism,  hoped  for  the  worst  from  the 
beginning,  and  as  time  went  on  and  nothing  was 
heard  of  either  of  the  wanderers,  some  of  Mountain 
Pink's  most  loyal  adherents  confessed  it  looked 
"romancy."  But  crusty  old  Chugg  remained  true 
to  his  ideal.  "She'll  write  when  she  gets  good  and 
ready,"  and  then  concluded,  loyally,  "Maybe  she 
can't  write,  nohow,"  and  nothing  could  shake  his 
faith. 

When  Mountain  Pink  and  the  mule-wrangler  re 
turned  as  bride  and  groom  and  set  up  housekeep 
ing  on  the  remainder  of  Chugg's  stocking,  and  on  his 
stage-route,  too,  so  that  he  had  to  drive  right  past 
the  honeymoon  cottage  every  time  he  completed 
the  circuit,  they  lost  caste  in  Carbon  County.  Chugg 
never  spoke  of  the  faithlessness  of  Mountain  Pink. 
His  bitterness  found  vent  in  tipping  over  the  stage 
when  his  passengers  were  confined  to  members  of 
the  former  Mrs.  Bosky's  sex,  and,  as  Leander  said, 
"the  flask  in  his  innerds  held  more."  And  these 
were  the  only  traces  of  tragedy  in  the  life  of  Lemuel 
Chugg,  stage-driver. 

Judith  had  continued  her  unquiet  pacing  in  the 
blinding  glare  while  the  group  within  cloors,  som* 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

nolent  from  the  heat  and  the  incessant  shrilling  of 
the  locusts,  droningly  discussed  the  faithlessness  of 
Mountain  Pink,  dozed,  and  took  up  the  thread  of 
the  romance.  Each  time  she  turned  Judith  would 
stop  and  scan  the  yellow  road,  shading  her  eyes 
with  her  hand,  and  each  time  she  had  turned  away 
and  resumed  her  walk.  Mary,  who  gave  the  post 
mistress  no  unstinted  share  of  admiration  for  the 
courage  with  which  she  faced  her  difficulties,  and 
who  had  been  seeking  an  opportunity  to  signify  her 
friendship,  and  now  that  she  saw  the  last  of  the 
gallants  depart,  inquired  of  Judith  if  she  might 
join  her. 

They  walked  without  speaking  for  several  minutes, 
enjoying  a  sense  of  comradeship  hardly  in  keeping 
with  the  brevity  of  their  acquaintance;  a  freedom 
from  restraint  spared  them  the  necessity  of  ex 
changing  small-talk,  that  frequently  irritating  toll 
exacted  as  tribute  to  possible  friendship. 

The  desert  lay  white  and  palpitating  beneath  the 
noonday  glare,  and  from  the  outermost  rim  of  des 
olation  came  dancing  "dust -devils"  whirling  and 
gliding  through  the  mazes  of  their  eerie  dance.  "I 
think  sometimes,"  said  Judith,  "that  they  are  the 
ghosts  of  those  who  have  died  of  thirst  in  the 
desert." 

Mary  shuddered  imperceptibly.  "How  do  you 
stand  it  with  never  a  glimpse  of  the  sea?" 

"You'll  love  it,  or  hate  it;  the  desert  is  too  jeal 
ous  for  half  measures.  As  for  the  sea  " — Judith 
shrugged  her  fine  shoulders — "from  all  I've  heard 
of  it,  it  must  be  very  wet." 

64 


THE    TRAIL    OF    SENTIMENT 

Each  felt  a  reticence  about  broaching  the  subject 
uppermost  in  her  thoughts  —  Judith  from  the  in 
stinctive  tendency  towards  secretiveness  that  was 
part  of  the  heritage  of  her  Indian  blood;  Mary  be 
cause  the  subject  so  closely  concerned  this  girl  for 
whom  she  felt  such  genuine  admiration. 

Judith  finally  brought  up  the  matter  with  an 
abruptness  that  scarce  concealed  her  anxiety. 

"You  saw  my  brother  yesterday  at  Mrs.  Clark's 
eating-house;  will  you  be  good  enough  to  tell  me  just 
what  happened?" 

Mary  related  the  incident  in  detail,  Judith  cross- 
examining  her  minutely  as  to  the  temper  of  the 
men  at  table  towards  Jim.  Did  she  know  if  any 
cattle-men  were  present?  Did  she  hear  where  her 
brother  had  gone? 

Mary  had  heard  nothing  further  after  he  had  left 
the  eating-house;  the  only  one  she  had  talked  to 
had  been  Mrs.  Clark,  whose  sympathy  had  been 
entirely  with  Jim.  Judith  thanked  her,  but  in 
reality  she  knew  no  more  now  than  she  had  heard 
from  Major  Atkins. 

Judith  now  stopped  in  their  walk  and  stood 
facing  the  road  as  it  rolled  over  the  foot-hills — a 
skein  of  yellow  silk  glimmering  in  the  sun.  Then 
Mary  saw  that  the  object  spinning  across  it  in  the 
distance,  hardly  bigger  than  a  doll's  carriage,  was 
the  long-delayed  stage.  She  spoke  to  the  post 
mistress,  but  apparently  she  did  not  hear — Judith 
was  watching  the  nearing  stage  as  if  it  might  bring 
some  message  of  life  and  death.  She  stood  still, 
and  the  drooping  lines  of  her  figure  straightened, 

65 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

every  fibre  of  her  beauty  kindled.     She  was  like 
a  flame,  paling  the  sunlight. 

And  presently  was  heard  the  uncouth  music  of 
sixteen  iron-shod  hoofs  beating  hard  from  the  earth 
rhythmic  notes  which  presently  grew  hollow  and 
sonorous  as  they  came  rattling  over  the  wooden 
bridge  that  spanned  the  creek. 

"Chugg!"  exclaimed  Leander,  rushing  to  the  door 
in  a  tumult.  There  was  something  crucial  in  the 
arrival  of  the  delayed  stage  -  driver.  His  delin 
quencies  had  deflected  the  course  of  the  travellers, 
left  them  stranded  in  a  remote  corner  of  the  wilder 
ness  ;  but  now  they  should  again  resume  the  thread 
of  things;  Chugg's  coming  was  an  event. 

"'Tain't  Chugg,  by  God!"  said  Leander,  impelled 
to  violent  language  by  the  unexpected. 

"It's  Peter  Hamilton!"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Dax. 

"Land's  sakes,  the  New- Yorker  1"  said  the  fat 
lady.  Only  Judith  said  nothing. 

Mr.  Hamilton  held  the  ribbons  of  that  battered 
prairie  -  stage  as  if  he  had  been  driving  past  the 
judges'  bench  at  the  Horse  Show.  Furthermore,  he 
wore  blue  overalls,  a  flannel  shirt,  and  a  sombrero, 
which  sartorial  inventory,  while  it  highly  became 
the  slim  young  giant,  added  an  extra  comedy  touch 
to  his  r61e  of  whip.  He  was  as  dusty  as  a  miller; 
close-cropped,  curly  head,  features,  and  clothes  were 
covered  with  a  fine  alkali  powdering ;  but  he  carried 
his  youth  as  a  banner  streaming  in  the  blue.  And 
he  swung  from  the  stage  with  the  easy  flow  of 
muscle  that  is  the  reward  of  those  who  live  in  the 
saddle  and  make  a  fine  art  of  throwing  the  lariat. 

66 


THE    TRAIL    OF    SENTIMENT 

They  greeted  him  heartily,  all  but  Judith,  who  did 
not  trust  herself  to  speak  to  him  before  the  prying 
eyes  of  Mrs.  Dax,  and  escaped  to  the,  house.  Chugg's 
latest  excursion  into  oblivion  had  resulted  in  a  fall 
from  the  box.  He  was  not  badly  hurt,  and  recu 
peration  was  largely  a  matter  of  "sleeping  it  off," 
concluded  Peter  Hamilton's  bulletin  of  the  condi 
tion  of  the  stage-driver.  So  the  travellers  were  still 
marooned  at  Dax's,  and  the  prospect  of  continuing 
their  journey  was  as  vague  as  ever. 

"Last  I  heard  of  you,"  said  Mrs.  Dax  to  Hamil 
ton,  with  a  sort  of  stone-age  playfulness,  "you  was 
punching  cows  over  to  the  Bitter  Root." 

" That's  true,  Mrs.  Dax" — he  gave  her  his  most 
winning  smile — "but  I  could  not  stay  away  from 
you  long." 

Leander  grimaced  and  rubbed  his  hands  in  an 
ecstasy  of  delight  at  finding  a  man  who  had  the 
temerity  to  bandy  words  with  Mrs.  Dax. 

"Hum-m-m-ph!"  she  whinnied,  with  equine 
coquetry.  "  Guess  it  was  rustlers  brought  you  back 
as  much  as  me." 

Judith,  who  had  entered  the  room  in  time  to  hear 
Mrs.  Dax's  last  remark,  greeted  him  casually,  but 
her  eyes,  as  they  met  his,  were  full  of  questioning 
fear.  Had  he  come  from  the  Bitter  Root  range  to 
hunt  down  her  brother?  The  thought  was  in 
tolerable.  Yet,  when  he  had  bade  her  good-bye 
some  three  weeks  ago,  he  had  told  her  that  he  did 
not  expect  to  return  much  before  the  fall  "round 
up."  She  had  heard,  a  day  or  two  before,  that  he 
was  again  in  the  Wind  River  country,  and  her  morn- 

67 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

ing  vigil  beneath  the  glare  of  the  desert  sun  had 
been  for  him. 

Mrs.  Dax  regarded  them  with  the  mercilessness 
of  a  death-watch ;  she  remembered  the  time  when 
Hamilton's  excuses  for  his  frequent  presence  at  the 
post-office  had  been  more  voluble  than  logical.  But 
now  he  no  longer  came,  and  Judith,  for  all  her 
deliberate  flow  of  spirits,  did  not  quite  convince 
the  watchful  eyes  of  Leander's  lady — the  post 
mistress  was  a  trifle  too  cheerful. 

"Mrs.  Dax,"  pleaded  Peter,  boyishly,  "I'm 
perishing  for  a  cup  of  coffee,  and  I've  got  to  get 
back  to  my  outfit  before  dark." 

"Oh,  go  on  with  you,"  whinnied  the  gorgon;  but 
she  left  the  room  to  make  the  coffee. 

Judith's  eyes  sought  his.  "Why  don't  you  and 
Leander  form  a  coalition  for  the  overthrow  of  the 
enemy?"  His  voice  had  dropped  a  tone  lower  than 
in  his  parley  with  Mrs.  Dax;  it  might  have  implied 
special  devotion,  or  it  might  have  implied  but  the 
passing  tribute  to  a  beautiful  woman  in  a  country 
where  women  were  few — the  generic  admiration 
of  all  men  for  all  women,  ephemerally  specialized 
by  place  and  circumstance. 

But  Judith,  harassed  at  every  turn,  heart-sick 
with  anxiety,  had  anticipated  in  Peter's  coming,  if 
not  a  solution  of  her  troubles,  at  least  some  evidence 
of  sustaining  sympathy,  and  was  in  no  mood  for 
resuscitating  the  perennial  pleasantries  anent 
Leander  and  his  masterful  lady. 

The  shrilling  of  the  locusts  emphasized  their 
silence.  She  spoke  to  him  casually  of  his  change  of 

63 


THE    TRAIL    OF    SENTIMENT 

plan,  but  he  turned  the  subject,  and  Judith  let  the 
matter  drop.  She  was  too  simple  a  woman  to 
stoop  to  oblique  measures  for  the  gaining  of  her 
own  ends.  If  he  was  here  to  hunt  down  her  brother, 
if  he  was  here  to  see  the  Eastern  woman  at  the 
Wetmore  ranch — well,  "life  was  life,"  to  be  taken 
or  left.  Thus  spoke  the  fatalism  that  was  the 
heritage  of  her  Indian  blood. 

The  thought  of  Miss  Colebrooke  at  Wetmore's 
reminded  her  of  a  letter  for  Peter  that  had  been 
brought  that  morning  by  one  of  the  Wetmore  cow 
boys. 

"  I  forgot — there's  a  letter  for  you."  She  went  to 
the  pigeon-holes  on  the  wall  that  held  the  flotsam 
and  jetsam  of  unclaimed  mail,  and  brought  him  a 
square,  blue  linen  envelope — distinctly  a  lady's 
letter. 

Peter  took  it  with  rather  a  forced  air  of  magna 
nimity,  as  if  in  neglecting  to  present  it  to  him  sooner 
she  drew  heavily  on  his  reserve  of  patience.  Tearing 
open  the  envelope,  he  read  it  voraciously,  read  it  to 
the  exclusion  of  his  surroundings,  the  world  at 
large,  and — Judith.  He  strode  up  and  down  the 
floor  two  or  three  times,  and  called  to  Leander,  who 
was  passing: 

"Dax,  I  must  have  that  gray  mare  of  yours  right 
away."  He  went  in  the  direction  of  the  stable, 
without  a  second  glance  at  the  postmistress,  and 
presently  they  saw  him  galloping  off  in  the  opposite 
direction  from  which  he  had  come.  Mrs.  Dax  came 
in  with  a  tray  on  which  were  a  pot  of  coffee  anct 
sundry  substantial  delicacies. 

69 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

"  Where's  he  gone?"  she  demanded,  putting  the 
tray  down  so  hard  that  the  coffee  slopped. 

"I  dunno,"  said  Leander.  "He  said  he'd  got  to 
have  the  gray  mare,  saddled  her  hisself,  and  rode 
off  like  hell." 

Mrs.  Dax  looked  at  them  all  savagely  for  the 
explanation  that  they  could  not  give.  In  sending 
her  out  to  make  coffee  she  felt  that  Peter,  whom 
she  regarded  in  the  light  of  a  weakness,  had  taken 
advantage  of  her  affections  to  dupe  her  in  regard 
to  his  plans. 

"Take  them  things  back  to  the  kitchen,"  she 
commanded  Leander. 

Mary  Carmichael  involuntarily  glanced  at  Judith ; 
the  fall  of  the  leaf  was  in  her  cheek. 

Peter  Hamilton,  bowed  in  his  saddle  and  flogging 
forward  inhumanely,  bred  rife  speculation  as  to 
his  destination  among  the  group  that  watched  him 
from  the  Daxes'  front  door.  Mrs.  Dax,  who  en 
tertained  so  profound  a  respect  for  her  own  omni 
science  that  she  disdained  to  arrive  at  a  conclusion 
by  a  logical  process  of  deduction,  was  "  plumb  certain 
that  he  had  gone  after  'rustlers!' '  Leander,  who 
had  held  no  opinions  since  his  marriage  except  that 
first  and  all-comprehensive  tenet  of  his  creed — that 
his  wife  was  a  person  to  be  loved,  honored,  and 
obeyed  instantly — agreed  with  his  lady  by  a  process 
of  reflex  action.  The  fat  lady,  who  had  a  common 
place  for  every  occasion,  didn't  "know  what  we  were 
all  coming  to."  Miss  Carmichael,  who  was  beginning 
to  find  $ier  capacity  for  amazement  overstrained, 
alone  accepted  this  last  incident  with  apathy.  Mr, 

7° 


THE    TRAIL    OF    SENTIMENT 

Hamilton  might  have  gone  in  swift  pursuit  of  cattle 
thieves  or  he  might  be  riding  the  mare  to  death  for 
pure  whimsy.  Only  Judith  Rodney,  who  said  noth 
ing,  felt  that  he  was  spurring  across  the  wilderness 
at  breakneck  speed  to  see  a  girl  at  Wetmore's.  But 
her  lack  of  comment  caused  no  ripple  of  surprise  in 
the  flow  of  loose-lipped  speculation  that  served,  for 
the  time  being,  to  inject  a  casual  interest  into  the 
talk  of  these  folk,  bored  to  the  verge  of  demoraliza 
tion  by  long  waiting  for  Chugg, 

Judith  preferred  to  confirm  her  apprehensions  re 
garding  Hamilton's  ride,  alone.  She  knew — had 
not  all  her  woman's  intuitions  risen  in  clamorous 
warning — and  yet  she  hoped,  hoped  despairingly, 
even  though  the  dread  alternative  to  the  girl  at  the 
Wetmore  ranch  threatened  lynch  law  for  her  brother. 
Her  very  gait  changed  as  she  withdrew  from  the 
group  about  the  door,  covertly  gaining  her  vantage- 
ground  inch  by  inch.  The  heels  of  her  riding-boots 
made  no  sound  as  she  stole  across  the  kitchen  floor, 
toeing  in  like  an  Indian  tracking  an  enemy  through 
the  forest.  The  small  window  at  the  back  of  the 
kitchen  commanded  a  view  of  the  road  in  all  its 
sprawling  circumlocution.  Seen  from  this  prospect, 
it  had  no  more  design  than  the  idle  scrawlings  of 
a  child  on  a  bit  of  paper;  but  the  choice  of  roads 
to  Good  and  Evil  was  not  fraught  with  more 
momentous  consequences  than  was  each  prong  of 
that  fork  towards  which  Hamilton  was  galloping. 

The  right  arm  swung  towards  the  Wetmore  ranch, 
where  at  certain  times  during  the  course  of  the  year 
a  hundred  cow-punchers  reported  on  the  stock  that 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

grazed  in  four  States.  At  certain  seasons,  likewise, 
despite  the  fact  that  the  ranch  was  well  into  the 
foot-hill  country,  there  might  be  found  a  New  York 
family  playing  at  life  primeval  with  the  co-operation 
of  porcelain  bath-tubs,  a  French  chef,  and  electric 
light. 

The  left  fork  of  the  road  had  a  meaner  destiny. 
It  dipped  straight  into  desolation,  penetrating  a  naked 
wilderness  where  bad  men  skulked  till  the  evil 
they  had  done  was  forgotten  in  deeds  that  called 
afresh  to  Heaven  for  vengeance.  It  was  well  away 
on  this  west  fork  of  the  road  that  they  lynched 
Kate  Watson — "Cattle  Kate  " — for  the  crime  of  loy 
alty.  It  was  she,  intrepid  and  reckless,  who  threat 
ened  the  horde  of  masked  scoundrels  when  they  came 
to  lynch  her  man  for  the  iniquity  of  raising  a  few 
vegetables  on  a  strip  of  ground  that  cut  into  their 
grazing  country.  And  when  she,  recognizing  them, 
masked  though  they  were,  threatened  them  with 
the  vengeance  of  the  law,  they  hanged  her  with  her 
man  high  as  Haman. 

Judith  watched  Hamilton  with  narrowing  eyes. 
And  now  she  was  all  Indian,  the  white  woman  in 
her  dead.  Only  the  Sioux  watched,  and,  in  the 
patient,  Indian  style,  bided  its  time.  "Cattle 
thieves,"  "the  girl  at  Wetmore's  " — the  words  sang 
themselves  in  her  head  like  an  incantation.  "  Cattle 
thieves"  meant  her  brother,  their  recognized  leader 
— her  brother,  who  was  dearer  to  her  than  the  heart 
in  her  breast,  the  eye  in  her  head,  the  right  hand 
that  held  together  the  shambling,  uncertain  destiny 
of  her  people.  Would  he  turn  to  the  left,  Justice, 

72 


THE    TRAIL    OF    SENTIMENT 

on  a  pale  horse,  hunting  her  brother  gallowsward? 
Would  he  turn  towards  the  right,  the  impetuous 
lover  spurring  his  steed  that  he  might  come  swiftly 
to  the  woman.  A  pulse  in  her  bosom  rose  slowly 
until  her  breath  was  suspended,  then  fell  again; 
she  was  still  watching,  without  an  outward  quiver, 
long  after  he  had  turned  to  the  right  —  and  the 
woman. 


VI 

A   DAUGHTER   OP   THE    DESERT 

TUDITH  knew  that  the  name  of  the  girl  whose 
\J  letter  sent  Peter  Hamilton  vaulting  to  the  saddle 
was  Katherine  Colebrooke.  There  had  been  a  deal 
of  letter-writing  between  her  and  the  young  cow- 
puncher  of  late,  of  which  perforce,  by  a  singular 
irony  of  fate,  the  postmistress  had  been  the  in 
voluntary  instrument.  The  correspondence  had 
followed  a  recent  hasty  journey  to  New  York,  under 
taken  somewhat  unwillingly  by  Hamilton  in  the  in 
terest  of  certain  affairs  connected  with  the  settle 
ment  of  an  estate. 

The  precipitancy  of  this  latest  turn  of  events 
bewildered  Judith ;  but  yet  a  little  while — a  matter 
of  weeks  and  days — and  her  friendship  with  Hamil 
ton  had  been  of  that  pleasantly  indefinite  estate 
situated  somewhere  on  the  borderland  of  romance, 
a  kingdom  where  there  is  no  law  but  the  mutual 
interest  of  the  wayfarers.  Judith  and  Peter  had 
been  pitifully  new  at  the  game  of  life  when  the  gods 
vouchsafed  them  the  equivocal  blessing  of  pro 
pinquity.  Judith  was  but  lately  come  from  the 
convent  at  Santa  F£,  and  Hamilton  from  the 

74 


A    DAUGHTER    OF    THE    DESERT 

university  whose  honors  availed  him  little  in  the 
trailing  of  cattle  over  the  range  or  in  the  sweat  and 
tumult  of  the  branding -pen.  It  was  a  strange 
election  of  opportunity  for  a  man  who  had  been 
class  poet  and  had  rather  conspicuously  avoided 
athletics  during  his  entire  college  course.  In 
pursuing  fortune  westward  Hamilton  did  not  lack 
for  chroniclers  who  would  not  have  missed  a  good 
story  for  the  want  of  an  authentic  dramatic  in 
terpretation  of  his  plans.  His  uncle,  said  they,  who 
had  put  him  through  college,  was  disposed  to  let 
him  sink  or  swim  by  his  own  efforts;  or,  again,  he 
had  quarrelled  with  this  same  omnipotent  uncle 
and  walked  from  his  presence  with  no  prospects  but 
those  within  grasp  of  his  own  hand.  Again,  he  had 
taken  the  negative  of  a  fair  lady  more  to  heart  than 
two-and-twenty  is  in  the  habit  of  taking  negatives. 
Peter  made  no  confidences.  He  went  West  to  punch 
cows  for  the  Wetmore  outfit ;  he  was  a  distant  con 
nection  of  the  Wetmores  through  his  mother's  side 
of  the  family. 

In  those  days  Peter  wore  his  rue — whether  for 
lady  fair  or  for  towering  prospects  stricken  down — 
with  a  tinge  of  wan  melancholy  not  unbecoming 
to  a  gentle  aquilinity  of  profile,  softened  by  the 
grace  of  adolescence.  His  instinctive  aristocracy 
of  manners  and  taste  would  have  availed  him  little 
with  his  new  associates  had  he  been  a  whit  less 
manly.  But  as  he  shirked  no  part  of  the  universal 
hardship,  they  left  him  his  reticence.  He  even 
came  to  enjoy  a  sort  of  remote  popularity  as  one 
who  was  conversant  with  the  best — a  nonchalant 

75 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

social  connoisseur  —  yet  who  realized  the  stern 
primitive  beauties  of  the  range  life. 

Judith's  convent  upbringing  had  conferred  on 
her  the  doubtful  advantage  of  a  gentlewoman's 
tastes  and  bearing,  making  of  her,  therefore,  an 
alien  in  her  father's  house.  When  Mrs.  Atkins, 
who  was  responsible  for  her  education,  realized 
the  equivocal  good  of  these  things,  and  saw  more 
over  that  the  girl  had  grown  to  be  a  beauty,  she 
offered  to  adopt  her;  but  Judith,  with  the  pitiful 
heroism  of  youth  that  understands  little  of  what  it 
is  renouncing,  thought  herself  strong  enough  to  hold 
together  a  family,  uncertain  of  purpose  as  quick 
silver. 

In  those  tragic  days  of  readjustment  came  Peter 
Hamilton,  as  strange  to  the  bald  conditions  of 
frontier  life  as  the  girl  herself.  From  the  beginning 
there  had  been  between  them  the  barrier  of  cir 
cumstance.  Hamilton  was  poor,  Judith  the  main 
stay  of  a  household  whose  thriftlessness  had  become 
a  proverb.  He  came  of  a  family  that  numbered  a 
signer  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  a  famous 
chief -justice,  and  the  dean  of  a  great  university; 
Judith  was  uncertain  of  her  right  to  the  very  name 
she  bore.  And  yet  they  were  young,  he  a  man, 
she  a  woman  —  eternal  fountain  of  interest.  A 
precocious  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things  was  the 
compass  that  enabled  Peter  to  steer  through  the 
deep  waters  in  the  years  that  followed.  But  the 
girl  paid  the  penalty  of  her  great  heart;  in  that 
troublous  sea  of  friendship,  she  was  soon  adrift 
without  rudder,  sail,  or  compass. 


A    DAUGHTER   OF    THE    DESERT 

Judith  was  now  eight-and-twenty,  and  a  sculptor 
would  have  found  a  hundred  statues  in  her.  Long 
of  limb,  deep-bosomed,  youth  and  health  radiated 
from  her  as  sparks  fly  upward.  In  sunlight,  her 
black  hair  had  the  bluish  iridescence  of  a  ripe  plum. 
The  eyes  were  deep  and  questioning — the  eyes  of 
a  young  seraph,  whose  wings  had  not  yet  brushed 
the  far  distant  heights  of  paradise.  Again,  in  her 
pagan  gladness  of  living,  she  might  have  been  a 
Valkyr  come  down  from  Valhalla  on  a  shooting-star. 
And  yet,  in  this  wilderness  that  was  famishing  for 
woman's  love  and  tears  and  laughter,  by  a  very 
perversity  of  fate  she  walked  alone. 

She  was  a  true  daughter  of  the  desert,  the  child 
of  stark,  unlovely  circumstance.  No  well-bred  ro 
mance  of  book  and  bells  and  churchly  benediction 
had  ushered  her  into  being.  Her  maternal  grand 
father  had  been  the  famous  Sioux  chief,  Flying 
Hawk;  her  grandmother,  a  white  woman,  who  knew 
no  word  of  her  people's  tongue,  nor  yet  her  name  or 
race.  The  Indians  found  the  white  baby  sleeping 
by  her  dead  mother  after  the  massacre  of  an  emigrant 
train.  They  took  her  with  them  and  she  grew  up, 
in  the  Black  Hill  country,  a  white-skinned  Sioux, 
marrying  a  chief  of  the  people  that  had  slain  her 
people.  She  accepted  her  squaw's  portion  uncom 
plainingly;  slaved  cheerfully  at  squaw's  work  while 
her  brave  made  war  on  the  whites,  hunted,  and 
smoked.  She  reared  her  half-breed  children  in  the 
legends  of  their  father's  people,  and  died,  a  withered 
crone,  cursing  the  pale-faces  who  had  robbed  the 
Sioux  of  the  buffalo  and  their  hunting-ground. 

6  77 


JUDITH   OF   THE    PLAINS 

Her  daughter,  Singing  Stream,  who  knew  no  word 
of  English,  but  who  could  do  better  bead-work  than 
any  squaw  in  the  tribe,  went  to  live  with  Warren 
Rodney  when  he  finished  his  cabin  on  Elder  Creek. 
That  was  before  the  gold  fever  reached  the  Black 
Hills,  and  Rodney  built  the  cabin  that  he  might 
fish  and  hunt  and  forget  the  East  and  why  he  left 
it.  There  were  reasons  why  he  wanted  to  forget  his 
identity  as  a  white  man  in  his  play  at  being  an  Ind 
ian.  In  the  first  flare  of  youth  and  the  joy  of 
having  come  into  her  woman's  kingdom,  the  half- 
breed  squaw  was  pretty;  she  was  proud,  too,  of  her 
white  man,  the  house  he  had  built  her,  and  the  girl 
pappoose  with  blue  eyes.  Furthermore,  she  had 
been  taught  to  serve  man  meekly,  for  he  was  the 
lord  of  creation. 

Rodney  talked  Sioux  to  her.  He  had  all  but 
forgotten  he  was  a  white  man.  The  girl  pappoose 
ran  about  the  cabin,  brown  and  bare,  but  for  the 
bead  jacket  Singing  Stream  had  made  for  her  in  the 
pride  of  her  maternity.  Rodney  called  the  little 
girl  "Judith."  Her  Indian  mother  never  guessed 
the  significance  of  the  strange  name  that  she  could 
not  say,  but  made  at  least  ten  soft  singing  syllables 
of,  in  the  Indian  way.  The  little  Judith  greeted  her 
father  in  strange  lispings;  Warren  Rodney  was  far 
from  unhappy  in  playing  at  primitive  man.  This 
recessional  into  conditions  primeval  endured  for 
"seven  snows,"  as  the  Indian  tongue  hath  it.  Then 
the  squaw  began  to  break,  after  the  manner  of 
the  women  of  her  father's  people.  She  had  be 
gun  her  race  with  time  a  decade  after  Warren 

78 


A   DAUGHTER   OF   THE    DESERT 

Rodney,  and  she  had  outdistanced  him  by  a  dec 
ade. 

And  then  the  Tumlins  came  from  Tennessee  to 
the  Black  Hills.  They  came  in  an  ox-cart,  and  the 
days  of  their  journey  were  more  than  two  years. 
They  had  stopped  in  Ohio,  and  again  in  Illinois; 
and,  behold!  neither  was  the  promised  land,  the 
land  that  their  excited  imaginations  had  painted 
from  the  large  talk  of  returning  travellers,  and  that 
was  further  glorified  through  their  own  thriftless 
discontent  with  conditions  at  home.  They  had 
travelled  on  and  on  across  half  a  continent  in  the 
wake  of  a  vanishing  sky-line.  The  vague  westward 
impulse  was  luring  them  to  California,  but  they 
waited  in  Dakota  that  their  starved  stock  might 
fatten,  and  while  they  rested  themselves  from  the 
long  journey,  Warren  Rodney  made  the  acquaint 
ance  of  Sally  Tumlin,  who  rallied  him  on  being  a 
"squaw  man." 

Warren  Rodney  had  almost  forgotten  the  sorceries 
of  the  women  of  his  people;  he  had  lived  so  long 
with  a  brown  woman,  wh  spread  no  silken  snares. 
Sally's  blushes  stirred  a  multitude  of  dead  things — 
the  wiles  of  pale  women,  all  strength  in  weakness, 
fragile  flowers  for  tender  handling — the  squaw  had 
grown  as  withered  as  a  raisin. 

Now,  Sally  Tumlin  had  no  convictions  about  life 
but  that  the  world  owed  her  "a  home  of  her  own." 
Her  mother  had  forged  the  bolt  of  this  particular 
maxim  at  an  early  date.  And  Sally  saw  from 
precocious  observation  that  the  business  of  women 
was  home-getting,  to  which  end  they  must  be  neat 

79 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

and  sweet  and  sparing  of  speech.  After  the  home 
was  forthcoming,  then,  indeed,  might  a  woman  take 
ease  in  slippers  and  wrapper,  and  it  is  surely  a  wife's 
privilege  to  speak  her  mind.  Sally  knew  that  she 
hated  travelling  westward  after  the  crawling  oxen; 
each  day  the  sun  pursued  them,  caught  up  with 
them,  outdistanced  them,  and  at  night  left  them 
stranded  in  the  wilderness,  and  rose  again  and 
mocked  them  on  the  morrow.  Her  father  and 
oafish  brother  loved  the  makeshifts  of  the  wagon 
life,  with  its  chance  shots  at  fleeing  antelope,  scurry 
ing  sage-hens,  and  bounding  cotton-tails;  a  chance 
parley  with  a  stray  Indian  but  added  zest  to  the 
game  of  chance.  But  Sally  hated  it  all.  The  cabin 
on  Elder  Creek  had  a  tight  roof;  Warren  Rodney 
had  money  in  the  bank.  He  had  had  uncommon 
luck  at  trapping.  His  talk  to  Sally  was  largely  of 
his  prospects. 

Sally  knew  that  the  world  owed  her  "a  home  of 
her  own" ;  and  why  should  she  let  a  squaw  keep  her 
from  it?  Sally's  mother  giggled  when  consulted. 
She  plainly  regarded  the  squaw  as  a  rival  of  her 
daughter.  The  ethics  of  the  case,  as  far  as  Mrs. 
Tumlin  was  concerned,  was  merely  a  question  of 
white  skin  against  brown,  and  which  should  carry 
the  day.  Singing  Stream  knew  not  one  word  of 
the  talk,  much  of  which  occurred  in  her  very 
presence,  that  threatened  to  pull  her  home  about 
her  ears,  but  she  knew  that  Sally  was  taking  her 
man  from  her.  The  white-skinned  woman  wore 
white  ruffles  about  her  neck  and  calico  dresses  that 
were  the  color  of  the  wild  roses  that  grew  among 

So 


A    DAUGHTER    OF    THE    DESERT 

the  willows  at  the  creek.  Sally  Tumlin's  pink 
calico  gowns  sowed  a  crop  of  nettles  in  the  mind  of 
the  squaw.  It  was  the  rainbow  things,  she  felt, 
that  were  robbing  her  of  her  man.  All  her  barbaric 
craving  for  glowing  colors  asserted  itself  as  a  means 
towards  the  one  great  end  of  keeping  him.  Sing 
ing  Stream  began  to  scheme  schemes.  One  day 
Rodney  was  splitting  wood  at  the  Tumlin  camp — 
though  why  he  should  split  wood  where  there  were 
two  women  puzzled  the  squaw.  But  the  ways  of 
the  pale-faces  were  beyond  her  ken.  She  only 
knew  that  she  must  make  herself  beautiful  in  the 
eyes  of  Warren  Rodney,  like  this  devil  woman,  and 
then  perhaps  the  pappoose  that  she  expected  with 
the  first  snowfall  would  be  a  man-child;  and  she 
hoped  great  things  of  this  happening. 

With  such  primitive  reasoning  did  Singing  Stream 
put  the  horses  to  the  light  wagon,  and,  taking  the 
little  Judith  with  her,  drove  to  Deadwood,  a  matter 
of  two  hundred  miles,  to  buy  the  bright  calicoes  that 
were  to  make  her  like  a  white  woman.  It  never 
occurred  to  the  half-breed  woman  to  make  known 
her  plans,  to  Warren  Rodney.  In  circumventing 
Sally  Tumlin  the  man  became  the  spoils  of  war,  and 
it  is  not  the  Indian  way  to  tell  plans  on  the  war- 
trail.  So  the  squaw  left  her  kingdom  in  the  hands 
of  the  enemy,  without  a  word. 

Sally  Tumlin  and  Warren  Rodney  looked  upon 
the  disappearance  of  the  squaw  in  the  light  of  a 
providential  solution  of  the  difficulties  attending 
their  romance.  They  admitted  it  was  square  of 
her  to  "hit  the  trail,"  and  they  decided  to  lose  no 

81 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

time  in  going  to  the  army  post,  where  a  chaplain, 
an  Indian  missionary,  happened  to  be  staying  at 
the  time,  and  have  a  real  wedding,  with  a  ring  and 
a  fee  to  the  parson.  The  wedding  party  started 
for  the  post,  old  mother  Tumlin  fluttering  about 
the  bride  as  complacently  as  if  the  ceremony  had 
been  the  culmination  of  the  most  decorous  courtship. 
The  oafish  brother  drove  the  bridal  party,  making 
crude  jests  by-the-way,  to  the  frank  delight  of  the 
prospective  groom  and  the  giggling  protestations 
of  the  bride.  The  chaplain  at  the  post  was  disposed 
to  ask  few  questions.  Parsons  made  queer  mar 
riages  in  those  tumultuous  days,  and  it  was  regarded 
as  a  patent  of  worthy  motives  that  the  pair  should 
call  in  the  man  of  the  gospel  at  all.  To  the  question 
whether  or  not  he  had  been  married  before,  Rodney 
answered : 

"Well,  parson,  this  is  the  first  time  I  have  ever 
stood  up  for  a  life  sentence."  And  the  ceremony 
proceeded. 

Some  of  the  ladies  at  the  post,  hearing  that  there 
was  to  be  a  wedding,  dropped  in  and  added  their 
smiles  and  flutterings  to  the  rather  grim  party; 
among  them,  Mrs.  Atkins,  who  had  just  come  to 
the  post  as  a  bride.  They  even  added  a  trifle  or  two 
from  their  own  store  of  pretty  things,  as  presents  to 
Sally.  And  Miss  Tumlin  left  the  post  Mrs.  Warren 
Rodney,  with  "  a  home  of  her  own  "  to  go  to. 

Singing  Stream  did  not  hasten  in  her  quest  for 
bright  fabrics  with  which  to  stay  the  hand  of  fate. 
To  the  half-breed  woman  the  journey  to  town  was 
not  without  a  certain  revivifying  pleasure.  The  Ind- 

82 


A    DAUGHTER    OF    THE    DESERT 

ian  in  her  stirred  to  the  call  of  the  open  country. 
The  tight  roof  to  the  cabin  on  Elder  Creek  had  not 
the  attractions  for  her  that  it  had  for  Sally  Tumlin. 
She  had  chafed  sometimes  at  a  house  with  four  walls. 
But  now  the  dead  and  gone  braves  rose  in  her  as 
she  followed  the  old  trail  where  they  had  so  often 
crept  to  battle  against  their  old  enemies,  the  Crows, 
before  the  white  man's  army  had  scattered  them. 
And  as  she  drove  through  the  foot-hill  country,  she 
told  the  solemn-eyed  little  Judith  the  story  of  the 
Sioux,  and  what  a  great  fighting  people  they  had 
been  before  Rodney's  people  drove  them  from  their 
land.  Judith  was  holding  a  doll  dressed  exactly 
like  herself,  in  soft  buckskin  shirt,  little  trousers,  and 
moccasins,  all  beautifully  beaded.  In  her  turn  she 
told  the  story  to  the  doll. 

Singing  Stream  told  her  daughter  of  the  making 
of  the  world,  as  the  Sioux  believe  the  story  of 
creation;  of  the  "Four  who  Never  Die" — Sharper, 
or  Bladder,  Rabbit,  Turtle,  and  Monster;  likewise 
of  the  coming  of  a  mighty  flood  on  which  swam  the 
Turtle  and  a  water-fowl  in  whose  bill  was  the  earth 
atom,  from  which  presently  the  world  began  to 
grow,  Turtle  supporting  the  bird  on  his  great 
back,  which  was  hard  like  rock.  The  rest  of  the 
myth,  that  deals  with  the  rising  and  setting  of  the 
sun,  Singing  Stream  could  not  tell  her  daughter,  as 
the  old  Sioux  chiefs  did  not  think  it  wise  to  let  their 
women  folk  know  too  much  about  matters  of 
theology.  Nor  did  they  relate  to  squaws  the  sun 
myth,  with  its  account  of  much  cutting-off  of  heads 
— thinking,  perhaps,  with  wisdom,  that  these  good 

83 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

ladies  saw  enough  of  carnage  in  their  every-day  life 
without  introducing  it  into  their  catechism. 

But  Singing  Stream  knew  the  story  of  "  Sharp 
er,"  or  "Bladder,"  as  he  is  called  by  some  of  the 
people,  because  he  is  round  and  his  grotesquely  fat 
figure  resembles  a  bladder  blown  to  bursting.  Blad 
der's  province  it  is  to  make  a  fool  of  himself, 
diving  into  water  after  plums  he  sees  reflected 
there  from  the  branches  of  the  trees.  He  dives 
again  and  again  in  his  pursuit  of  folly,  even  tying 
stones  to  his  wrists  and  ankles  to  keep  himself 
down  while  he  gathers  the  reflected  fruit.  After 
his  rescue,  which  he  fights  against  valiantly,  as  he 
lies  gasping  on  the  bank  of  the  stream,  he  sees  the 
fruit  on  the  branches  above  his  head.  It  is  this 
same  Bladder  who  is  one  of  the  dramatis  persona 
in  the  moon  myth,  and  that  is  told  to  women  as 
safely  without  the  limits  of  that  little  learning  that 
is  a  dangerous  thing.  Bladder  met  Rabbit  hunting; 
and  Bladder  kept  throwing  his  eye  up  into  the 
tree -tops  to  look  for  game.  The  Rabbit  watched 
him  enviously,  thinking  what  a  saving  of  effort  it 
would  be  if  he  could  do  the  same  thing.  Wherefore 
Bladder  promised  to  instruct  him,  telling  him  to 
change  eyes  after  using  one  four  times,  but  Rabbit 
did  not  think  that  the  first  time  counted,  as  that 
was  but  a  trial.  So  he  lost  his  eye  after  throwing 
it  up  the  fifth  time.  And  the  eye  of  the  rabbit  is 
the  moon,  and  the  face  seen  in  the  full  moon  is  the 
reflection  of  the  rabbit  seen  in  his  own  eye  as  we 
see  ourselves  reflected  in  the  eye  of  a  friend  if  we 
look  closely.  The  little  girl  was  wonderfully  im- 

84 


A    DAUGHTER    OF    THE    DESERT 

pressed.  She  put  her  hand  to  her  own  eyes,  but  they 
were  in  tight,  too  tight  to  throw  up  to  the  tree-tops. 

Singing  Stream  also  told  little  Judith  that  the 
Great  Mystery  had  shown  truths,  hid  to  man,  to  the 
trees,  the  streams,  the  hills;  and  the  clouds  that 
shaped  themselves,  drifting  hither  and  yon,  were 
the  Great  Mystery's  passing  thoughts.  But  he  had 
deprived  all  these  things  of  speech,  as  he  did  not 
trust  them  fully,  and  they  could  only  speak  to  man 
in  dreams,  or  in  some  passing  mood,  when  they 
could  communicate  to  him  the  feeling  of  one  of  the 
Great  Spirits,  and  warn  man  of  what  was  about 
to  befall  him.  Judith  was  not  quite  four  when  she 
took  this  memorable  drive  with  her  mother,  but  the 
impression  of  these  things  abided  through  all  her 
years.  It  was  to  the  measureless  spaces  of  desert 
loneliness  that  she  learned  to  bring  her  sorrows  in 
the  days  of  her  arid  youth,  and  to  feel  a  kinship 
with  all  its  moods  and  to  hear  in  the  voice  of  its 
silence  a  never-failing  consolation. 

And  when  they  had  come  within  a  mile  of  Warren 
Rodney's  cabin  on  Elder  Creek,  Singing  Stream 
halted  arid  prepared  for  the  great  event  of  reinstate 
ment.  First  she  made  a  splendid  toilet  of  purple 
calico  torn  into  strips  and  tied  about  the  waist  to 
simulate  the  skirts  of  the  devil  woman.  Over  these 
she  wore  a  shirt  of  buckskin,  broidered  with  beads 
of  many  colors,  and  a  necklace  of  elk  teeth,  wound 
twice  about  the  throat.  On  her  feet  she  wore  new 
moccasins  of  tanned  elk-hide,  and  these,  too,  were 
beaded  in  many  colors.  Her  hair,  now  braided  with 
strips  of  scarlet  flannel,  hung  below  the  waist.  And 


JUDITH    OP   THE    PLAINS 

she  walked  to  Rodney's  cabin,  not  as  an  outgrown 
mistress,  but  as  the  daughter  of  a  chief.  The  little 
Judith  held  up  her  head  and  clung  tight  to  the  doll. 
She  knew  that  something  of  moment  was  about  to 
happen. 

The  gala  trio,  Singing  Stream,  Judith,  and  Judith's 
doll,  presented  themselves  at  Rodney's  house,  before 
which  the  bride  was  washing  clothes,  the  day  being 
fine.  Sally,  as  usual,  wore  one  of  the  rose-colored 
calicoes  with  the  collar  turned  well  in  and  the  sleeves 
rolled  above  the  elbows.  She  washed  vigorously, 
with  a  steady  splashing  of  suds.  Sally  enjoyed  this 
home  of  her  own  and  all  the  household  duties 
appertaining  to  it.  She  was  singing,  and  a  strand 
of  pale-brown  hair,  crinkly  as  sea- weed,  had  blown 
across  the  rose  of  her  cheek,  when  she  felt  rather 
than  saw  a  shadow  fall  across  her  path,  and,  glanc 
ing  up,  she  saw  facing  her  the  woman  whom  she 
had  supplanted,  and  the  solemn  -  eyed  little  girl 
holding  tight  to  her  doll.  Now,  neither  woman 
knew  a  word  of  the  other's  speech,  but  Sally  was 
proficient  in  the  language  of  femininity,  and  she  was 
not  at  a  loss  to  grasp  the  significance  of  the  purple 
calico,  the  beaded  buckskin  shirt,  and  the  necklace 
of  elk  teeth.  The  half-breed  walked  as  a  chief's 
daughter  to  the  woman  at  the  tub,  and  Sally  grew 
sick  and  chill  despite  her  white  skin  and  the  gold 
ring  that  made  Warren  Rodney  her  man  in  the  face 
of  the  law.  The  dark  woman  held  Judith  proudly 
by  the  hand,  as  a  sovereign  might  carry  a  sceptre. 
Judith  was  her  staff  of  office,  her  emblem  of  authority 
in  the  house  of  Warren  Rodney. 

86 


A    DAUGHTER   OF   THE    DESERT 

Singing  Stream  held  out  her  hands  to  Sally 
in  a  gesture  of  appeal  — and  blundered.  Of  the 
chief's  daughter,  walking  proudly,  Sally  was  afraid; 
but  a  supplicating  half-breed  in  strips  of  purple 
calico,  not  even  hemmed,  was  a  matter  for  mer 
riment.  Sally  put  her  hands  on  her  hips,  arms 
akimbo,  and  laughed  a  dry  cackle.  The  light  in 
the  brown  woman's  eyes,  as  she  looked  at  the  white, 
was  like  prairie-fires  rolling  forward  through  dark 
ness.  There  was  no  need  of  a  common  speech  be 
tween  them.  The  whole  destiny  of  woman  was  in 
the  laugh  and  the  look  that  answered  it. 

And  the  man  they  could  have  murdered  for  came 
from  the  house,  an  unheroic  figure  with  suspenders 
dangling  and  a  corncob  pipe  in  his  mouth,  sullen, 
angry,  and  withal  abjectly  frightened,  as  mere  man 
inevitably  is  when  he  sniffs  a  woman's  battle  in  the 
air.  The  bride,  at  sight  of  her  husband,  took  to 
hysterics.  She  wept,  she  laughed,  and  down  tumbled 
her  hair.  She  felt  the  situation  demanded  a  scene. 
Rodney,  with  a  marital  brevity  hardly  to  be  ex 
pected  so  soon,  commanded  Sally  to  go  into  the 
house  and  to  "shut  up." 

Then  he  faced  Singing  Stream  and  said  to  her  in 
her  own  language:  "You  must  go  away  from  here. 
The  pale-faced  woman  is  my  wife  by  the  white  man's 
law — ring  and  Bible.  No  Indian  marriage  about 
this." 

But  the  brown  woman  only  pointed  to  Judith. 
She  asked  Rodney  had  she  not  been  a  good  squaw 
to  him. 

And  Rodney,  who  at  best  was  but  a  poltroon, 

87 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

could  only  repeat:  "You  got  to  keep  away  from 
here.  It's  the  white  man's  law  —  one  squaw  for 
one  man." 

From  within  came  the  sound  of  Sally's  lamenta 
tion  as  she  called  for  her  father  and  brother  to  take 
her  from  the  squaw  and  contamination.  Warren 
Rodney  was  a  man  of  few  words.  It  had  become 
his  unpleasant  duty  to  act,  and  to  act  quickly.  He 
snatched  Judith  from  her  mother  and  took  her  into 
the  house,  and  he  returned  with  his  Winchester, 
which  was  not  loaded,  to  Singing  Stream. 

"You  got  to  go,"  he  said,  and  levelling  the 
Winchester,  he  repeated  the  command.  Singing 
Stream  looked  at  him  with  the  dumb  wonder  of  a 
forest  thing.  "I  was  a  good  squaw  to  you,"  she 
said ;  and  did  not  even  curse  him.  And  turning,  she 
ran  towards  the  foot-hills,  with  all  the  length  of  pur 
ple  calico  trailing. 

Now  Mrs.  Rodney,  nee  Tumlin,  was  but  human, 
and  her  cup  of  happiness  as  the  wife  of  a  "squaw 
man"  was  not  the  brimming  beaker  she  had  an 
ticipated.  The  expulsion  of  her  predecessor,  at  such 
a  time,  to  make  room  for  her  own  home-coming, 
was,  it  seemed,  open  to  criticism.  "The  neighbor 
hood" — it  included  perhaps  five  families  living  in  a 
radius  of  as  many  hundred  miles — felt  that  the 
Tumlins  had  established  a  bad  precedent.  A  "squaw 
man"  driving  out  a  brown  wife  to  make  room  for  a 
white  is  not  a  heroic  figure.  It  had  been  done  before, 
but  it  would  not  hand  down  well  in  the  traditions  of 
the  settling  of  this  great  country.  Trespass  of  law 
and  order,  with  their  swift,  red-handed  reckoning, 

88 


A    DAUGHTER    OF    THE    DESERT 

were  but  moves  of  the  great  game  of  colonization. 
But  to  shove  out  a  brown  woman  for  a  white  was 
a  mean  move.  Few  stopped  at  the  Rodneys'  ranch, 
though  it  marked  the  first  break  in  the  journey 
from  town  to  the  gold-mining  country.  Rodney 
had  fallen  from  his  estate  as  a  pioneer ;  his  political 
opinions  were  unsought  in  the  conclaves  that  sat 
and  spat  at  the  stove,  when  business  brought  them 
to  the  joint  saloon  and  post-office.  The  women  dealt 
with  the  question  more  openly,  scorning  feminine 
subtlety  at  this  pass  as  inadequate  ammunition. 
When  they  met  Mrs.  Rodney  they  pulled  aside  their 
skirts  and  glared.  This  outrage  against  woman  it 
was  woman's  work  to  settle. 

Mrs.  Rodney,  who  had  no  more  moral  sense  than 
a  rabbit,  felt  that  she  was  the  victim  of  persecution. 
She  knew  she  was  a  good  woman:  Hadn't  she  a 
husband?  Had  there  ever  been  a  word  against  her 
character?  What  was  the  use  of  making  all  that 
fuss  over  a  squaw  ?  It  was  not  as  if  she  was  a  white 
woman.  The  injustice  of  it  preyed  on  the  former 
Miss  Tumlin.  She  took  to  the  consolations  of  snuff- 
dipping  and  fell  from  her  pink-and- white  estate. 

The  Tumlin  family  did  not  remain  long  enough 
in  the  Black  Hill  country  to  witness  Sally's  failure 
as  the  wife  of  a  pioneer.  The  restlessness  of  the 
"settler,"  if  the  paradox  be  permissible,  was  in  the 
marrow  of  their  bones.  The  makeshifts  of  the 
wagon,  the  adventures  of  the  road,  were  the  only 
home  they  craved.  The  spring  after  Sally's  marriage 
they  set  forth  for  California,  the  year  following  for 
New  Mexico,  and  still  sighed  for  new  worlds  to  visit, 

89 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

They  were  happier  now  that  Sally,  the  one  element 
of  discontent,  had  been  removed  from  their  perennial 
journeying  by  the  merciful  dispensation  of  marriage. 
Old  Tumlin,  his  wife,  and  the  son  gave  themselves 
up  more  than  ever  to  the  day-dreams  of  the  road, 
the  freedom  of  the  open  country,  and  the  spirit  of 
adventure. 

Rodney's  squaw  wife  was  taken  in  by  some 
neighbors,  good  folk  who  were  conversant  with  all 
phases  of  the  romance.  They  stood  by  her  in  her 
hour  of  trial,  and  afterwards  continued  to  keep  her 
as  a  servant.  Her  son  Jim  grew  up  with  their  own 
children.  When  he  was  four  years  of  age  his 
mother,  Singing  Stream,  died,  and  Sally  persuaded 
her  husband  to  take  young  Jim  into  their  own 
home,  partly  as  a  sop  to  neighborly  criticism,  partly 
as  a  salve  to  her  own  conscience.  Sally  had  children 
of  her  own,  and  looked  at  things  differently  now 
from  the  time  when  she  fought  the  squaw  for 
Rodney's  favor. 

Jim's  foster-parents  were,  in  truth,  glad  to  part 
with  him.  From  his  earliest  babyhood  he  had  been 
known  as  a  "limb  of  Satan."  He  was  an  Ishmael 
by  every  instinct  of  his  being.  And  Mrs.  Warren 
Rodney,  n6e  Tumlin,  felt  that  in  dealing  with  him, 
in  her  capacity  of  step-mother,  she  daily  expiated  any 
offence  that  she  might  have  done  to  his  mother. 

Sally  grew  slatternly  with  increasing  maternity. 
She  spent  her  time  in  a  rocking-chair,  dipping  snuff 
— a  consolation  imported  from  her  former  home — 
and  lamenting  the  bad  marriage  she  had  made. 
Rodney  ascribed  his  ill-fortune  to  unjust  neighbor- 

90 


A   DAUGHTER   OF    THE    DESERT 

ly  criticism.  He  farmed  a  little,  lie  raised  a  little 
stock,  and  he  drank  a  great  deal  of  whiskey.  Sally 
hated  the  Black  Hill  country.  She  felt  that  it 
knew  too  much  about  her.  The  neighborly  in 
quisition  had  fallen  like  a  blight  on  the  family 
fortunes.  A  vague  migratory  impulse  was  on  her. 
She  wanted  to  go  somewhere  and  begin  all  over 
again.  By  dint  of  persistent  nagging  she  persuad 
ed  her  husband  to  move  to  Wyoming,  then  in  the 
golden  age  of  the  cattle  industry.  Those  were  days 
when  steers,  to  speak  in  the  cow  language,  had 
"jumped  to  seventy-five."  The  wilderness  grew 
light-headed  with  prosperity.  Wonderful  are  the 
tales  still  told  about  those  fat  years  in  cattle-land. 
It  was  in  those  halcyon  days  of  the  Cheyenne  Club 
that  the  members  rode  from  the  range,  white  with 
the  dust  of  the  desert,  to  enjoy  greater  luxuries  than 
those  procurable  at  their  clubs  in  New  York. 

Nor  was  it  all  feasting  and  merrymaking.  A 
heroic  band  it  was  that  battled  with  the  wilderness, 
riding  the  range  with  heat  and  cold,  starvation  and 
death,  and  making  small  pin -pricks  in  that  empty 
blotch  of  the  United  States  map  that  is  marked 
"Great  Alkali  Desert"  blossom  into  settlements. 
When  the  last  word  has  been  said  about  the  pioneers 
of  these  United  States,  let  the  cow-boy  be  remem 
bered  in  the  universal  toast,  that  bronzed  son  of  the 
saddle  who  lived  his  little  day  bravely  and  merrily, 
and  whose  real  heroism  is  too  often  forgotten  in  the 
glamour  of  his  own  picturesqueness. 

Judith  was  ten  years  old  when  her  father,  his 
wife,  and  their  children  moved  from  Dakota — they 

91 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

were  not  so  particular  about  North  and  South 
Dakota,  in  those  days — to  take  up  a  claim  on 
Sweetwater,  Wyoming.  Judith  gave  scant  promise 
of  the  beauty  that  in  later  life  became  at  once  her 
dower  and  her  misfortune,  that  which  was  as  likely 
to  bring  wretchedness  as  happiness.  In  Wyoming 
she  was  destined  to  find  an  old  friend,  Mrs.  Atkins, 
who,  as  the  bride  of  the  young  lieutenant,  had  been 
present  at  the  marriage  of  Sally  Tumlin  and  Warren 
Rodney,  and  who  had  always  felt  a  wholly  unrea 
sonable  sense  of  guilt  at  witnessing  the  ceremony 
and  contributing  a  lace  handkerchief  to  the  bride. 
Her  husband,  now  Major  Atkins,  was  stationed  at 
Fort  Washakie,  Wyoming.  Mrs.  Atkins  happening 
again  on  the  Rodney  family,  and  her  husband  hav 
ing  increased  and  multiplied  his  army  pay  many 
times  over  by  a  successful  venture  in  cattle,  the 
scheme  of  Judith's  convent  education  was  put 
through  by  the  major's  wife,  who  had  kept  her  New 
England  conscience,  the  discomforts  of  frontier  posts 
notwithstanding. 

So  Judith  went  to  the  nuns  to  school,  and  stayed 
with  them  till  she  was  eighteen.  Mrs.  Atkins  would 
have  adopted  her  then;  but  Judith  by  this  time 
knew  her  family  history  in  all  its  sordid  ramifications, 
and  felt  that  duty  called  her  to  her  brother,  who 
had  not  improved  his  unfortunate  start  in  life, 
though  his  step-mother  did  not  spoil  him  for  the 
staying  of  the  rod. 


VII 

CHUGG   TAKES   THE    RIBBONS 

CHUGG,  comforted  with  liquids  and  stayed  with 
a  head-plaster,  presented  himself  at  the  Dax 
ranch  just  twenty -four  hours  after  he  was  due. 
His  mien  combined  vagueness  with  hostility,  and 
he  harnessed  up  the  stage  that  Peter  Hamilton  had 
driven  over  the  day  before,  when  his  prospective 
passengers  were  looking,  with  a  graphic  pantomimic 
representation  of  "take  it  or  leave  it."  Under  the 
circumstances,  Miss  Carmichael  and  the  fat  lady  con 
sented  to  be  passengers  with  much  the  same  feel 
ing  of  finality  that  one  might  have  on  embarking  for 
the  planet  Mars  in  an  air-ship. 

There  was,  furthermore,  a  suggestion  of  last  rites 
in  the  farewells  of  the  Daxes,  each  according  to  their 
respective  personalities,  that  was  far  from  reassur 
ing. 

"  Here's  some  bread  and  meat  and  a  bottle  of  cold 
coffee,  if  you  live  to  need  it,"  was  Mrs.  Dax's  grim 
prognostication  of  accident.  Leander,  being  of  an 
emotional  nature,  could  scarce  restrain  his  tears — 
the  advent  of  the  travellers  had  created  a  welcome 
variation  in  the  monotony  of  his  dutiful  routine 
• — he  felt  all  the  agitation  of  parting  with  life-long 
7  93 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

friends.  Mary  Carmichael  and  Judith  promised 
to  write — they  had  found  a  great  deal  to  say  to  each 
other  the  preceding  evening. 

Chugg  cracked  his  whip  ominously,  the  travellers 
got  inside,  not  daring  to  trust  themselves  to  the  box. 

The  journey  with  the  misanthrope  was  but  a 
repetition  of  that  first  day's  staging  —  the  sage 
brush  was  scarcer,  the  mountains  seemed  as  far  off 
as  ever,  and  the  outlook  was,  if  possible,  more 
desolate.  The  entry  in  Miss  Carmichael' s  diary, 
inscribed  in  malformed  characters  as  the  stage  jolted 
over  ruts  and  gullies,  reads:  "I  do  not  mind  telling 
you,  in  strictest  confidence,  '  Dere  Diary' — as  the 
little  boy  called  you — that  when  I  so  lightly  severed 
my  connection  with  civilization,  I  had  no  idea  to 
what  an  extent  I  was  going  in  for  the  prairie 
primeval.  How  on  earth  does  a  woman  who  can 
write  a  letter  like  Mrs.  Yellett  stand  it?  And  where 
on  the  map  of  North  America  is  Lost  Trail?" 

"Land  sakes!"  regretted  the  fat  lady,  "but  I  do 
wish  I  had  a  piece  of  that  'boy's  favorite'  cake  that 
I  had  for  my  lunch  the  day  we  left  town.  I  just 
ate  and  ate  it  'cause  I  hadn't  another  thing  to  do. 
If  I  hadn't  been  so  greedy  I  could  offer  him  a  piece, 
just  to  show  him  that  some  women  folk  have  kind 
hearts,  and  that  the  whole  sect  ain't  like  that 
Pink." 

"Boy's  favorite,"  as  adequate  compensation  for 
shattered  ideals,  a  broken  heart,  and  the  savings 
of  a  lifetime,  seemed  to  Mary  Carmichael  inadequate 
compensation,  but  she  forbore  to  express  her  sen 
timents. 

94 


CHUGG    TAKES   THE    RIBBONS 

The  fat  lady  had  never  relaxed  her  gaze  from 
Chugg's  back  since  the  stage  had  started.  She 
peered  at  that  broad  expanse  of  flannel  shirt  through 
the  tiny  round  window,  like  a  careful  sailing-master 
sweeping  the  horizon  for  possible  storm-clouds.  At 
every  portion  of  the  road  presenting  a  steep  decline 
she  would  prod  Chugg  in  the  back  with  the  handle 
of  her  ample  umbrella,  and  demand  that  he  let 
her  out,  as  she  preferred  walking.  The  stage-driver 
at  first  complied  with  these  requests,  but  when  he 
saw  they  threatened  to  become  chronic,  he  would 
send  his  team  galloping  down  grade  at  a  rate  to 
justify  her  liveliest  fears. 

"Do  you  think  you  are  a  -  picnicking,  that  you 
crave  roominating  round  these  yere  solitoodes?" 
And  the  misanthrope  cracked  his  whip  and  adjured 
his  team  with  cabalistic  imprecations. 

"Did  you  notice  if  Mrs.  Dax  giv'  him  any  cold 
coffee,  same  as  she  did  us?"  anxiously  inquired  the 
fat  lady  from  her  lookout. 

Mary  hadn't  noticed. 

"He's  drinking  something  out  of  a  brown  bottle 
— seems  to  relish  it  a  heep  more'n  he  would  cold 
coffee,"  reported  the  watch.  "Hi  there!  Hi!  Mr. 
Chugg!"  The  stage-driver,  thinking  it  was  merely 
a  request  to  be  allowed  to  walk,  continued  to  drive 
with  one  hand  and  hold  the  brown  bottle  with  the 
other.  But  even  his  too  solid  flesh  was  not  proof 
against  the  continued  bombardment  of  the  umbrella 
handle. 

"Um-m-m,"  he  grunted  savagely,  applying  a 
watery  eye  to  the  round  window. 

95 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

"Nothing,"  answered  the  fat  lady,  quite  satis 
fied  at  having  her  worst  fears  confirmed. 

Chugg  returned  to  his  driving,  as  one  not  above 
the  weakness  of  seeing  and  hearing  things. 

"Tain't  coffee." 

"  Could  you  smelt  it?"  questioned  Mary,  anxiously. 

"You  never  can  tell  that  way,  when  they  are 
plumb  pickled  in  it,  like  him." 

"Then  how  did  you  know  it  wasn't  coffee?" 

"His  eyes  had  fresh  watered." 

Mary  collapsed  under  this  expert  testimony. 
"What  are  we  going  to  do  about  it?" 

"Appeal  to  him  as  a  gentleman,"  said  the  fat 
lady,  not  without  dramatic  intonation. 

"You  appeal,"  counselled  Mary;  "I  saw  him  look 
at  you  admiringly  when  you  were  walking  down 
that  steep  grade." 

"Is  that  so?"  said  the  fat  lady,  with  a  conspicuous 
lack  of  incredulity;  and  she  put  her  hand  involun 
tarily  to  her  frizzes. 

This  time  she  did  not  trust  to  the  umbrella-handle 
as  a  medium  of  communication  between  the  stage- 
driver  and  herself.  Putting  her  hand  through  the 
port-hole  she  grasped  Chugg's  arm — the  bottle  arm 
— with  no  uncertain  grip. 

"Why,  Mr.  Chugg,  this  yere  place  is  getting  to  be 
a  regular  summer  resort ;  think  of  two  ladies  trusting 
themselves  to  your  protection  and  travelling  out 
over  this  great  lonesome  desert." 

Chugg's  mind,  still  submerged  in  local  Lethe 
waters,  grappled  in  silence  with  the  problem  of  the 
feminine  invasion,  and  then  he  muttered  to  him- 


CHUGG  TAKES  THE  RIBBONS 

self  rather  than  to  the  fat  lady,  "Nowhere's  safe 
from  'em ;  women  and  house-flies  is  universally  pre 
vailing." 

The  fat  lady  dropped  his  arm  as  if  it  had  been 
a  brand.  "He's  no  gentleman.  As  for  Mountain 
Pink,  she  was  drove  to  it." 

All  that  day  they  toiled  over  sand  and  sage 
brush;  the  sun  hung  like  a  molten  disk,  paling  the 
blue  of  the  sky;  the  grasshoppers  kept  up  their 
shrill  chirping — and  the  loneliness  of  that  sun- 
scorched  waste  became  a  tangible  thing. 

Chugg  sipped  and  sipped,  and  sometimes  swore 
and  sometimes  muttered,  and  as  the  day  wore  on 
his  driving  not  only  became  a  challenge  to  the 
endurance  of  the  horses,  but  to  the  laws  of  gravita 
tion.  He  lashed  them  up  and  down  grade,  he  drove 
perilously  close  to  shelving  declivities,  and  some 
times  he  sang,  with  maudlin  mournfulness : 

"  'Oh,  bury  me  not  on  the  lone  prairie.' 
The  words  came  low  and  mournfully 
From  the  cold,  pale  lips  of  a  youth  who  lay 
On  his  dying  couch  at  the  close  of  day." 

The  fat  lady  reminded  him  that  he  was  a  gentle 
man  and  that  he  was  driving  ladies ;  she  threatened 
him  with  her  son  on  Sweetwater,  who  began,  in 
the  maternal  chronicles,  by  being  six  feet  in  his 
stockings,  and  who  steadily  grew,  as  the  scale 
of  threats  increased,  till  he  reached  the  altitude  of 
six  feet  four,  growing  hourly  in  height  and  fierce 
ness. 

But  Chugg  gave  no  heed,  and  once  he  sang  the 
97 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

"Ballad  of  the  Mule-Skinner,"  with  what  seemed 
to  both  terrified  passengers  an  awful  warning  of 
their  overthrow: 

"As  I  was  going  down  the  road, 
With  a  tired  team  and  a  heavy  load, 
I  cracked  my  whip  and  the  leaders  sprung — 
The  fifth  chain  broke,  and  the  wheelers  hung, 
The  off -horse  stepped  on  the  wagon  tongue — " 

This  harrowing  ballad  was  repeated  with  ac 
companying  Delsarte  at  intervals  during  the  after 
noon,  but  as  Mary  and  the  fat  lady  managed  to 
escape  without  accident,  they  began  to  feel  that 
they  bore  charmed  lives. 

At  sundown  they  came  to  the  road -ranch  of 
Johnnie  Dax,  bearing  Leander's  compliments  as  a 
secret  despatch.  The  outward  aspect  of  the  place 
was  certainly  an  awful  warning  to  trustful  bachelors 
who  make  acquaintances  through  the  columns  of 
The  Heart  and  Hand.  The  house  stood  solitary  in 
that  scourge  of  desolation.  The  windows  and  doors 
gaped  wide  like  the  unclosed  eyes  of  a  dead  man  on 
a  battle-field.  Chugg  halloed,  and  an  old  white 
horse  put  his  head  out  of  the  door,  shook  it  upward 
as  if  in  assent,  then  trotted  off. 

"That's  Jerry,  and  he's  the  intelligentest  animal 
I  ever  see,"  remarked  the  stage-driver,  sobering  up 
to  Jerry's  good  qualities,  and  presently  Johnnie 
Dax  and  the  white  horse  appeared  together  from 
around  the  corner  of  the  house. 

This  Mr.  Dax  was  almost  an  exact  replica  of  the 
other,  even  to  the  apologetic  crook  in  the  knees 


CHUGG   TAKES   THE    RIBBONS 
/ 

and  a  certain  furtive  way  of  glancing  over  the 
shoulder  as  if  anticipating  missiles. 

"  Pshaw  now,  ladies!  why  didn't  you  let  me  know 
that  you  was  corning?  and  I'd  have  tidied  up  the 
place  and  organized  a  few  dried-apple  pies." 

"Good  house-keepers  don't  wait  for  company  to 
come  before  they  get  to  their  work,"  rebukefully 
commented  the  fat  lady. 

Mr.  Dax,  recognizing  the  voice  of  authority,  seized 
a  towel  and  began  to  beat  out  flies,  chickens,  and 
dogs,  who  left  the  premises  with  the  ill  grace  of 
old  residents.  Two  hogs,  dormant,  guarded  either 
side  of  the  door-step  and  refused  so  absolutely  to 
be  disturbed  by  the  flicking  of  the  towel  that 
one  was  tempted  to  look  twice  to  assure  himself 
that  they  were  not  the  fruits  of  the  sculptor's 
chisel. 

"Where's  your  wife?"  sternly  demanded  the  fat 
lady. 

"Oh,  my  Lord!  I  presume  she's  dancin'  a  whole 
lot  over  to  Ervay.  She  packed  her  ball-gown  in  a 
gripsack  and  lit  out  of  here  two  days  ago,  p'inting 
that  way.  A  locomotive  couldn't  stop  her  none 
if  she  got  a  chance  to  go  cy cloning  round  a  dance." 

In  the  mean  time,  the  two  hogs  having  failed  to 
grasp  the  fact  that  they  were  de  trap,  continued  to 
doze. 

"Come,  girls,  get  up,"  coaxed  Johnnie,  persuasive 
ly.  "Maude,  I  don't  know  when  I  see  you  so  lazy. 
Run  on,  honey — run  on  with  Ethel."  For  Ethel,  the 
piebald  hog,  finally  did  as  she  was  bid. 

Mary  Carmichael  could  not  resist  the  temptation 
99 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

of  asking  how  the  hogs  happened  to  have  such 
unusual  names. 

"  To  tell  the  truth,  I  done  it  to  aggravate  my  wife. 
When  I  finds  myself  a  discard  in  the  matrimonial 
shuffle,  I  figgers  on  a  new  deal  that's  going  to 
inclood  one  or  two  anxieties  for  my  lady  partner — 
to  which  end — viz.,  namely,  I  calls  one  hawg  Ethel 
and  the  other  hawg  Maude,  allowing  to  my  wife 
that  they're  named  after  lady  friends  in  the  East. 
Them  lady  friends  might  be  the  daughters  of 
Ananias  and  Sapphira,  for  all  they  ever  happened, 
but  they  answers  the  purpose  of  riling  her  same  as 
if  they  were  eating  their  three  squares  daily.  I  have 
hopes,  eve^thing  else  failing,  that  she  may  yet  quit 
dancing  and  settle  down  to  the  sanctity  of  the  home 
out  of  pure  jealousy  of  them  two  proxy  hawgs." 

"I  can  just  tell  you  this,"  interrupted  the  fat 
lady:  "I  don't  enjoy  occupying  premises  after 
hawgs,  no  matter  how  fashionable  you  name  'em. 
A  hawg's  a  hawg,  with  manners  according,  if  it's 
named  after  the  President  of  the  United  States  or 
the  King  of  England." 

"That's  just  what  I  used  to  think,  marm,  of  all 
critters  before  I  enjoyed  that  degree  of  friendliness 
that  I'm  now  proud  to  own.  Take  Jerry  now,  that 
old  white  horse — why,  me  and  him  is  just  like  broth 
ers.  When  I  have  to  leave  the  kid  to  his  lonesome 
infant  reflections  and  go  off  to  chop  wood,  I  just  call 
Jerry  in,  and  he  assoomes  the  responsibility  of  nurse 
like  he  was  going  to  draw  wages  for  it." 

"I  reckon  there's  faults  on  both  sides,"  said 
the  fat  lady,  impartially.  "No  natural  woman 

IPO 


CHUGG    TAKES    Tl    l>    IU3.BONS 


would  leave  her  baby  to  a  horse  to 
went  off  dancing.  And  no*  natural  *rnari'  'would*  nil 
his  house  full  of  critters,  and  them  with  highfalutin 
names.  Take  my  advice,  turn  'em  out." 

Mary  did  not  wait  to  hear  the  continuation  of  the 
fat  lady's  advice.  She  went  out  on  the  desert  to 
have  one  last  look  at  the  west.  The  sun  had  taken 
his  plunge  for  the  night,  leaving  his  royal  raiment  of 
crimson  and  gold  strewn  above  the  mountain-tops, 

Her  sunset  reflections  were  presently  interrupted 
by  the  fat  lady,  who  proposed  that  they  should 
walk  till  Mr.  Dax  had  tidied  up  his  house,  observ 
ing,  with  logic,  that  it  did  not  devolve  on  them  to 
clean  the  place,  since  they  were  paying  for  supper 
and  lodging.  They  had  gone  but  a  little  way  when 
sudden  apprehension  caused  the  fat  lady  to  grasp 
Mary's  arm.  Miss  Carmichael  turned,  expecting 
mountain-lions,  rattlesnakes,  or  stage-robbers,  but 
none  of  these  casualties  had  come  to  pass. 

"Land  sakes!  Here  we  be  parading  round  the 
prairie,  and  I  never  found  out  how  that  man  cooked 
his  coffee." 

"What  difference  does  it  make,  if  we  can  drink 
it?" 

"The  ways  of  men  cooks  is  a  sealed  book  to  you, 
I  reckon,  or  you  wouldn't  be  so  unconcerned  —  'spe 
cially  in  the  matter  of  coffee.  All  men  has  got  the 
notion  that  coffee  must  be  b'iled  in  a  bag,  and  if  they 
'ain't  got  a  regular  bag  real  handy,  they  take  what 
they  can  get.  Oh,  I've  caught  'em,"  went  on  the 
fat  lady,  darkly,  "b'iling  coffee  in  improvisations 
that'd  turn  your  stomach." 

JPi 


JUDITH    QF   THE    PLAINS 

:  "Yes,  yes,"  Mary  lia.stily  agreed,  hoping  against 
hope  tha*i;  she  wasn't-  going  to  be  more  explicit. 

"And  they  are  so  cute  about  it,  too;  it's  next  to 
impossible  to  catch  'em.  You  ask  a  man  if  he  b'iles 
his  coffee  loose  or  tight,  and  he'll  declare  he  b'iles  it 
loose,  knowing  well  how  suspicious  and  prone  to  in 
vestigate  is  the  female  mind.  But  you  watch  your 
chance  and  take  a  look  in  the  coffee-pot,  and  maybe 
you'll  find— " 

"Yes,  yes,  I've  heard — " 
"I've  seen — " 

"Let's  hurry,"  implored  Mary. 
"Have  you  made  your  coffee  yet?"  inquired  the 
fat  lady. 

"Yes,  marm,"  promptly  responded  Johnnie. 
"I  hope  you  b'iled  it  in  a  bag — it  clears  it  beau 
tiful,  a  bag  does." 

Johnnie  shifted  uneasily.  "No,  marm,  I  b'iles  it 
loose.  You  see,  bags  ain't  always  handy." 

The  fat  lady  plied  her  eye  as  a  weapon.  No 
Dax  could  stand  up  before  an  accusing  feminine  eye. 
He  quailed,  made  a  grab  for  the  coffee-pot,  and 
rushed  with  it  out  into  the  night. 

"What  did  I  tell  you?"  she  asked,  with  an  air  of 
triumph. 

Johnnie  returned  with  the  empty  coffee-pot.  "To 
tell  the  truth,  marm,  I  made  a  mistake.  I  'ain't 
made  the  coffee.  I  plumb  forgot  it.  P'raps  you 
could  be  prevailed  on  to  assist  this  yere  outfit  to 
coffee  while  I  organizes  a  few  sody-biscuits." 

After  supper,  when  the  fat  lady  was  so  busy  talk 
ing  "goo-goo"  language  to  the  baby  as  to  be  oblivi- 

102 


CHUGG   TAKES   THE    RIBBONS 

ous  of  everything  else,  Mary  Carmichael  took  the  op 
portunity  to  ask  Johnnie  if  he  knew  anything  about 
Lost  Trail.  The  name  of  her  destination  had  come 
to  sound  unpleasantly  ominous  in  the  ears  of  the 
tired  young  traveller,  and  she  feared  that  her  in 
quiry  did  not  sound  as  casual  as  she  tried  to  have 
it.  Nor  was  Johnnie's  candid  reply  reassuring. 

"It's  a  pizen-mean  country,  from  all  I  ever  heard 
tell.  The  citizens  tharof  consists  mainly  of  coyotes 
and  mountain-lions,  with  a  few  rattlers  thrown  in 
just  to  make  things  neighborly.  This  yere  place  " — 
waving  his  hand  towards  the  arid  wastes  which  night 
was  making  more  desolate — "is  a  summer  resort, 
with  modern  improvements,  compared  to  it." 

Mary  screwed  her  courage  to  a  still  more  desperate 
point,  and  inquired  if  Mr.  Dax  knew  a  family  named 
Yellett  living  in  Lost  Trail. 

"Never  heard  of  no  family  living  there,  excepting 
the  bluff  at  family  life  maintained  by  the  wild  beasts 
before  referred  to.  See  here,  miss,  I  ain't  makin'  no 
play  to  inquire  into  your  affairs,  but  you  ain't 
thinkin*  o'  visitin'  Lost  Trail,  be  you?" 

"Perhaps,"  said  Mary,  faintly;  and  then  she,  too, 
talked  "goo-goo"  to  the  baby. 


VIII 

THE    RODNEYS    AT    HOME 

A  A,  that  long  and  never-to-be-forgotten  night 
the  stage  lurched  through  the  darkness  with 
Mary  Carmichael  the  solitary  passenger.  The  fat 
lady  had  warned  Johnnie  Dax  that  he  was  on  no 
account  to  replenish  Chugg's  flask,  if  he  had  the 
wherewithal  for  replenishment  on  the  premises. 
Moreover,  she  threatened  Dax  with  the  fury  of  her 
son  should  he  fail  in  this  particular;  and  Johnnie, 
hurt  to  the  quick  by  the  unjust  suspicion  that  he 
could  fail  so  signally  in  his  duty  to  a  lady,  not 
only  refused  to  replenish  the  flask,  but  threatened 
Chugg  with  a  conditional  vengeance  in  the  event 
of  accident  befalling  the  stage.  It  was  with  a 
partially  sobered  and  much  -  threatened  stage- 
driver,  therefore,  that  Mary  continued  her  jour 
ney  after  the  supper  at  Johnnie  Dax's,  but  the 
knowledge  of  it  brought  scant  reassurance,  and 
it  is  doubtful  if  the  red  stage  ever  harbored  any 
one  more  wakeful  than  the  pale,  tired  girl  who 
watched  all  the  changes  from  dark  to  dawn  at 
the  stage  window. 

Once  or  twice  she  caught  a  glimpse  of  distant 
camp-fires  burning  and  knew  that  some  cattle  outfit 

104 


THE    RODNEYS    AT    HOME 

was  camped  there  for  the  night;  and  once  they 
drove  so  close  that  she  could  hear  the  cow-boys' 
voices,  enriched  and  mellowed  by  distance,  borne 
to  them  on  the  cool,  evening  wind.  It  gave  a  sense 
of  security  to  know  that  these  big-hearted,  manly 
lads  were  within  call,  and  she  watched  the  dwindling 
spark  of  their  camp-fires  and  strained  her  ears  to 
catch  the  last  note  of  their  singing,  with  something 
of  the  feeling  of  severed  comradeship.  Range  cattle, 
startled  from  sleep  by  the  stage,  scrambled  to  their 
feet  and  bolted  headlong  in  the  blind  impulse  oi 
panic,  their  horns  and  the  confused  massing  of  their 
bodies-  showing  in  sharp  silhouette  against  the 
horizon  for  a  moment,  then  all  would  settle  into 
quiet  again.  There  was  no  moon  that  night,  but 
the  stars  were  sown  broadcast — softly  yellow  stars, 
lighting  the  darkness  with  a  shaded  luster,  like 
lamps  veiled  in  pale  -  yellow  gauze.  The  chill 
electric  glitter  of  the  stars,  as  we  know  it  from 
between  the  roofs  of  high  houses,  this  world  of 
far  -  flung  distance  knows  not.  There  the  stars 
are  big  and  still,  like  the  eyes  of  a  contented 
woman. 

The  hoofs  of  the  horses  beat  the  night  away  as 
regularly  as  the  ticking  of  a  clock.  It  grew  darker 
as  the  night  wore  on,  and  sometimes  a  coyote 
would  yelp  from  the  fringe  of  willows  that  bordered 
a  creek  in  a  way  that  made  Mary  recall  tales  of 
banshees.  And  once,  when  the  first  pale  streak  of 
dawn  trembled  in  the  east  and  the  mountains  looked 
like  jagged  rocks  heaved  against  the  sky  and  in 
danger  of  toppling,  the  whole  dread  picture  brought 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

before  her  one  of  Vedder's  pictures  that  hung  in 
the  shabby  old  library  at  home. 

They  breakfasted  somewhere,  and  Chugg  put 
fresh  horses  to  the  stage.  She  knew  this  from  their 
difference  of  color;  the  horses  that  they  had  left  the 
second  Dax  ranch  with  had  been  white,  and  these 
that  now  toiled  over  the  sand  and  desolation  were 
apparently  brown.  She  could  not  be  certain  that 
they  were  brown,  or  that  they  were  toiling  over  the 
sand  and  desolation,  or  that  her  name  was  Mary 
Carmichael,  or  indeed  of  anything.  Four  days  in 
the  train,  and  what  seemed  like  four  centuries  in 
the  stage,  eliminated  any  certainty  as  to  anything. 
She  could  only  sit  huddled  into  a  heap  and  wait 
for  things  to  become  adjusted  by  time. 

Chugg  was  behaving  in  a  most  exemplary  manner. 
He  drove  rigidly  as  an  automaton,  and  apparently 
he  looked  no  longer  on  the  "lightning"  when  it  was 
bottled.  Once  or  twice  he  had  applied  his  eye  to 
the  pane  that  separated  him  from  his  passenger, 
and  asked  questions  relative  to  her  comfort,  but 
Mary  was  too  utterly  dejected  to  reply  in  more  than 
monosyllables.  As  they  crept  along,  the  sun-dried 
timbers  of  the  stage  creaked  and  groaned  in  seeming 
protest  at  wearing  its  life  away  in  endless  journey- 
ings  over  this  desert  waste,  then  settled  down  into 
one  of  those  maddeningly  monotonous  reiterations 
to  which  certain  inanimate  things  are  given  in 
seasons  of  nervous  tension.  This  time  it  was: 
"All  the  world's — a  stage — creak — screech — all — the 
world's  a  stage — creak — screech!"  over  and  over 
till  Mary  found  herself  fast  succumbing  to  the 

106 


THE    RODNEYS   AT   HOME 

hypnotic  effect  of  the  constant  repetition,  listening 
for  it,  even,  with  the  tyrannous  eagerness  of  over 
wrought  nerves,  when  the  stage-driver  broke  the 
spell  with,  "This  here  stage  gets  to  naggin'  me  along 
about  here.  She's  hungry  for  her  axle-grease — 
that's  what  ails  her." 

"I  suppose,"  Mary  roused  herself  to  say,  "you 
have  quite  a  feeling  of  comradeship  for  the  stage." 

"  Me  and  Clara  " — the  stage  had  this  name  painted 
on  the  side — "have  been  travelling  together  nigh 
onto  four  year.  And  while  there's  times  that  I 
would  prefer  a  greater  degree  of  reciprocity,  these 
yere  silent  companions  has  their  advantages.  Why, 
compare  Clara  to  them  female  blizzards — the  two 
Mrs.  Daxes  —  and  you  see  Clara's  good  p'ints 
immejit.  Yes,  miss,  the  thirst  -  quenchers  are  on 
me  if  either  one  of  the  Dax  boys  wouldn't  be  glad 
to  swap,  but  I'd  have  to  be  a  heap  more  locoed  than 
I  am  now  to  consent  to  the  transaction." 

At  sunset  the  interminable  monotony  of  the 
wilderness  was  broken  by  a  house  of  curious  ar 
chitecture,  the  like  of  which  the  tired  young  traveller 
had  never  seen  before,  and  whose  singular  candor 
of  design  made  her  doubt  the  evidence  of  her  own 
thoroughly  exhausted  faculties.  The  house  seemed 
to  consist  of  a  series  of  rooms  thrown,  or  rather 
blown,  together  by  some  force  of  nature  rather  than 
by  formal  design  of  builder  or  carpenter.  The 
original  log-cabin  of  this  composite  dwelling  looked 
better  built,  more  finished,  neater  of  aspect  than 
those  they  had  previously  stopped  at  in  crossing 
the  Desert.  Springing  from  the  main  building,  like 

107 


JUDITH    OP    THE    PLAINS 

claws  from  a  crustacean,  were  a  series  of  rooms 
minus  either  side  walls  or  flooring.  Indeed,  they 
might  easily  have  passed  for  porches  of  more 
than  usually  commodious  size  had  it  not  been  for 
the  beds,  bureaus,  chairs,  stove  with  attendant 
pots,  kettles,  and  supper  in  the  course  of  preparation. 
Seen  from  any  vantage-point  in  the  surrounding 
country,  the  effect  was  that  of  an  interior  on  the 
stage — the  background  of  some  homely  drama  where 
pioneer  life  was  being  realistically  depicted.  The 
dramatis  persona  who  occupied  the  centre  of  the 
stage  when  Mary  Carmichael  drove  up  was  an 
elderly  woman  in  a  rocking-chsi'r.  She  was  dressed 
in  a  faded  pink  calico  gown,  limp  and  bediaggled, 
whose  color  brought  out  the  parchment-like  hue 
and  texture  of  her  skin  in  merciless  contrast.  Per 
haps  because  she  still  harbored  illusions  about  the 
perishable  quality  of  her  complexion,  which  gave 
every  evidence  of  having  borne  the  brunt  of  merci 
less  desert  suns,  snows,  blizzards,  and  the  ubiqui 
tous  alkali  dust  of  all  seasons,  she  wore  a  pink  sun- 
bonnet,  though  the  hour  was  one  past  sundown, 
and  though  she  sat  beneath  her  own  roof -tree,  even 
if  lacking  the  protection  of  four  walls.  From  the 
corner  of  her  mouth  protruded  a  snuff -brush,  so  con 
stantly  in  this  accustomed  place  that  it  had  come 
to  be  regarded  by  members  of  her  family  as  part 
and  parcel  of  her  attire  —  the  first  thing  assumed 
in  the  morning,  the  last  thing  laid  aside  at  night. 
Mary  Carmichael  had  little  difficulty  in  recognizing 
Judith  Rodney's  stepmother,  nee  Tumlin — she  who 
had  been  the  heroine  of  the  romance  lately  recorded. 

108 


THE    RODNEVS   AT    HOME 

Mrs.  Rodney's  interest  in  the  girl  alighting  from 
the  stage  was  evinced  in  the  palsied  motion  of  the 
chair  as  it  quivered  slightly  back  and  forth  in  place 
of  the  swinging  seesaw  with  which  she  was  wont  to 
wear  the  hours  away.  The  snuff-brush  was  brought 
into  more  fiercely  active  commission,  but  she  said 
nothing  till  Mary  Carmichael  was  within  a  few  inches 
of  her.  Then,  shifting  the  snuff-brush  to  a  position 
more  favorable  to  enunciation,  she  said:  "Howdy? 
Ye  be  Miz  Yellett's  gov'ment,  ain't  ye?"  There  was 
something  threatening  in  her  aspect,  as  if  the  office 
of  governess  to  the  Yelletts  carried  some  challeng 
ing  quality. 

"Government?"  repeated  Mary,  vaguely,  her  head 
still  rumbling  with  the  noise  and  motion  of  the 
stage;  "I'm  afraid  I  hardly  understand." 

"Ain't  you-uns  goin'  to  teach  the  Yellett  outfit 
ther  spellin',  writin',  and  about  George  Washington, 
an'  how  the  Yankees  kem  along  arter  he  was  in  his 
grave  an'  fit  us  and  broke  up  the  kentry  so  we  had 
ter  leave  our  home  in  Tennessee  an'  kem  to  this 
yere  outdacious  place,  where  nobody  knows  the 
diffunce  between  aig-bread  an'  corn-dodger?  I  war 
a  Miss  Tumlin  from  Tennessee." 

The  rocking-chair  now  began  to  recover  its  ac 
customed  momentum.  This  much-heralded  educa 
tional  expert  was  far  from  terrifying.  Indeed,  to 
Mrs.  Rodney's  hawklike  gaze,  that  devoured  every 
visible  item  of  Mary's  extremely  modest  travelling- 
dress,  there  was  nothing  so  very  wonderful  about 
"the  gov'ment  from  the  East."  With  a  deftness 
compatible  only  with  long  practice,  Mrs.  Rodney 
8  109 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

now  put  a  foot  on  the  round  of  an  adjoining  chair 
and  shoved  it  towards  Mary  Carmichael  in  hospita 
ble  pantomime,  never  once  relaxing  her  continual 
rocking  the  meantime.  Mary  took  the  chair,  and 
Mrs.  Rodney,  after  freshening  up  the  snuff  -  brush 
from  a  small,  tin  box  in  her  lap,  put  spurs  to  her 
rocking-chair,  so  to  speak,  and  started  off  at  a  brisk 
canter. 

"I  low  it's  mighty  queer  you-uns  don't  recognize 
the  job  you-uns  kem  out  yere  to  take,  when  I  call 
it  by  name."  From  the  sheltering  flap  of  the  pink 
sun-bonnet  she  turned  a  pair  of  black  eyes  full  of 
ill-concealed  suspicion.  "Miz  Yellett  givin'  herself 
as  many  airs  'bout  hirin'  a  gov'ment  's  if  she  wuz 
goin'  to  Congress.  Queer  you  don't  know  whether 
you  be  one  or  not!"  She  withdrew  into  the  sun- 
bonnet,  muttering  to  herself.  She  could  not  be 
more  than  fifty,  Mary  thought,  but  her  habit  of 
muttering  and  exhibiting  her  depopulated  gums 
while  she  was  in  the  act  of  revivifying  the  snuff- 
brush  gave  her  a  cronish  aspect. 

A  babel  of  voices  came  from  the  open-faced  room 
on  the  opposite  side  of  the  house  corresponding  to 
the  one  in  which  Mary  and  Mrs.  Rodney  were  sitting. 
Apparently  supper  was  being  prepared  by  some  half- 
dozen  voung  people,  each  of  whom  thought  he  or  she 
was  being  imposed  upon  by  the  others.  "Hand 
me  that  knife."  "Git  it  yourself."  "I'll  tell  maw 
how  you  air  wolfing  down  the  potatoes  as  fast  as  I 
can  fry  'em."  "Go  on,  tattle-tale."  This  was  the 
repartee,  mingled  with  the  hiss  of  frying  meat,  the 
grinding  of  coffee,  the  thumping  sound  made  by 

no 


THE    RODNEYS    AT    HOME 

bread  being  hastily  mixed  in  a  wooden  bowl  stand 
ing  on  a  wooden  table.  The  babel  grew  in  volume. 
Dogs  added  to  it  by  yelping  emotionally  when  the 
smell  of  the  newly  fried  meat  tempted  them  too 
near  the  platter  and  some  one  with  a  disengaged 
foot  at  his  disposal  would  kick  them  out  of  doors. 
Personalities  were  exchanged  more  freely  by  mem 
bers  of  the  family,  and  the  meat  hissed  harder  as  it 
was  newly  turned.  "  Laws-a-massy !"  muttered  Mrs. 
Rodney ;  and  then,  shoving  back  the  sun-bonnet,  she 
lifted  her  voice  in  a  shrill,  feminine  shriek: 

' '  Eudory !     Eu-dory !     You-do-ry ! ' ' 

A  Hebe -like  creature,  blond  and  pink -cheeked, 
in  a  blue-checked  apron  besmeared  with  grease  and 
flour,  came  sulkily  into  her  mother's  presence.  See 
ing  Mary  Carmichael,  she  grasped  the  skirt  of  the 
greasy  apron  with  the  sleight  of  hand  of  a  prestidi- 
gitateur  and  pleated  it  into  a  single  handful.  Her 
manner,  too,  was  no  slower  of  transformation.  The 
family  sulks  were  instantly  replaced  by  a  company 
bridle,  aided  and  abetted  by  a  company  simper. 
"I  didn't  know  the  stage  was  in  yet,  maw.  I 
been  talking  to  Try." 

"This  here  be  Miz  Yellett's  gov'ment.  Maybe 
she'd  like  to  pearten  up  some  before  she  eats." 
She  started  the  rocking-chair  at  a  gallop,  to  signify 
to  her  daughter  that  she  washed  her  hands  of  further 
responsibility.  Being  proficient  in  the  sign  language 
of  Mrs.  Rodney's  second  self,  as  indeed  was  every 
member  of  the  family,  Eudora  led  Mary  to  a  bench 
placed  in  one  of  the  rooms  enjoying  the  distinction 
of  a  side  wall,  and  indicated  a  family  toilet  service, 

in 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

which  displayed  every  indication  of  having  lately 
seen  active  service.  A  roll-towel,  more  frankly  sig 
nificant  of  the  multitude  of  the  Rodneys  than  had 
been  the  babel  of  voices,  a  discouraged  fragment 
of  comb,  a  tin  basin,  a  slippery  atom  of  soap,  these 
Eudora  proffered  with  an  unction  worthy  of  better 
things.  "  I  declare  Mist'  Chugg  have  scarce  left  any 
soap,  an'  I  don't  believe  thar's  'nother  bit  in  the 
house."  Eudora's  accent  was  but  faintly  reminis 
cent  of  her  mother's  strong  Smoky  Mountain  dia 
lect,  as  a  crude  feature  is  sometimes  softened  in  the 
second  generation.  It  was  not  unpleasing  on  her 
full,  rosy  mouth.  The  girl  had  the  seductiveness  of 
her  half-sister,  Judith,  without  a  hint  of  Judith's 
spiritual  quality. 

Mary  told  her  not  to  mind  about  the  soap,  and 
went  to  fetch  her  hand-bag,  which,  consistent  with 
the  democratic  spirit  of  its  surroundings,  was  rest 
ing  against  a  clump  of  sage-brush,  whither  it  had 
been  lifted  by  Chugg.  Miss  Carmichael's  individual 
toilet  service,  which  was  neither  handsome  nor 
elaborate,  impressed  Eudora  far  more  potently  in 
ranking  Mary  as  a  personage  than  did  her  dignity 
of  office  as  "gov'ment." 

"I  reckon  you-uns  must  have  seen  Sist'  Judy  up 
to  Miz  Dax's.  I  hope  she  war  lookin'  right  well." 
There  was  in  the  inquiry  an  unmistakable  note  of 
pride.  The  connection  was  plainly  one  to  be  flaunt 
ed.  Judith,  with  her  gentle  bearing  and  her  simple, 
convent  accomplishments,  was  plainly  the  grande 
dame  of  the  family.  Eudora  had  now  divested  her 
self  of  the  greasy,  flour-smeared  apron,  flinging  it 

113 


THE    RODNEYS   At    HOME 

under  the  wash-bench  with  a  single  all-sufficient 
movement,  while  Mary's  look  was  directed  towards 
her  dressing-bag.  In  glancing  up  to  make  some 
remark  about  Judith,  Mary  was  confronted  by  a 
radiant  apparition  whose  lilac  calico  skirts  looked 
fresh  from  the  iron. 

At  the  side  of  the  house  languished  a  wretched, 
abortive  garden,  running  over  with  weeds  and  sage 
brush,  and  here  a  man  pottered  with  the  purposeless 
energy  of  old  age,  working  with  an  ear  cocked  in 
the  direction  of  the  house,  as  he  turned  a  spade  of 
earth  again  and  again  in  hopeless,  pusillanimous 
industry.  But  when  his  strained  attention  was 
presently  rewarded  by  a  shouted  summons  to  supper, 
and  he  stood  erect  but  for  the  slouching  droop  of 
shoulders  that  was  more  a  matter  of  temperament 
than  of  age,  one  saw  a  tall  man  of  massive  build, 
whose  keen  glance  and  slightly  grizzled  hair  belied 
his  groping,  ineffectual  labor.  The  head  and  face 
were  finely  modelled.  Unless  nature  had  fashion 
ed  them  in  some  vagrant,  prankish  mood,  such 
elegance  of  line  betokened  prior  generations  in 
which  gentlemen  and  scholars  had  played  some  part 
— the  vagabond  scion  of  a  good  family,  perhaps.  A 
multitude  of  such  had  grafted  on  the  pioneer  stock 
of  the  West,  under  names  that  carried  no  signifi 
cance  in  the  places  whence  they  came. 

Weakness  and  self-indulgence  there  were,  and 
those  writ  large  and  deep,  on  the  face  of  Warren 
Rodney;  and,  in  default  of  an  expression  of  deeper 
significance,  the  wavering  lines  of  instability  pro 
duced  a  curiously  ambiguous  effect  of  a  fine  head 

IT3 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

modelled  by  a  'prentice  hand;  a  lady's  copy  of  the 
Belvidere,  attempted  in  the  ardors  of  the  first  lessons, 
might  approximate  it. 

A  smoking  kerosene  lamp  revealed  a  supper- 
table  of  almost  institutional  proportions.  There 
were  four  sons  and  two  daughters  of  the  Tumlin 
union,  strapping  lads  and  lasses  all  of  them,  with 
more  than  a  common  dower  of  lusty  health  and  a 
beauty  that  was  something  deeper  than  the  perish 
able  iridescence  of  youth.  There  was  Fremont, 
named  for  the  explorer-soldier;  there  was  Orlando, 
named  from  his  mother's  vague,  idle  musings  over 
paper-backed  literature  at  certain  "unchancy"  sea 
sons;  there  was  Richards,  named  from  pure  policy, 
for  a  local  great  man  of  whom  Warren  Rodney  had 
anticipated  a  helping  hand  at  the  time;  there  was 
Eudora,  whose  nominal  origin  was  uncertain,  unless 
it  bore  affiliation  to  that  of  Orlando;  there  was 
Sadie,  thus  termed  to  avoid  the  painful  distinctions 
of  "old  Sally"  and  "young  Sally";  and,  lastly, 
like  a  postscript,  came  Dan — with  him,  fancy,  in  the 
matter  of  names,  seemed  to  have  failed.  Dan  was 
now  six,  a  plump  little  caricature  of  a  man  in  blue 
overalls,  which,  as  they  had  descended  to  him  from 
Richards  in  the  nature  of  an  heirloom,  reached 
high  under  his  armpits  and  shortened  the  function 
of  his  suspenders  to  the  vanishing  point. 

Eudora  was  now  sixteen,  and  the  woman-famine 
in  all  the  land  had  gifted  her  with  a  surprising 
precocity.  Eudora  knew  her  value  and  meant  to 
make  the  most  of  it.  Unlike  her  mother  in  the  old 
Black  Hill  days,  she  expected  more  than  a  "home 

114 


THE    RODNEYS    AT    HOME 

of  her  own."  To-night  four  suitors  sat  at  table  with 
Eudora,  and  she  might  have  had  forty  had  she 
desired  it.  Any  one  of  the  four  would  have  cheerfully 
murdered  the  remaining  three  had  opportunity 
presented  itself.  Supper  was  a  mockery  to  them, 
a  Barmecide  feast.  Each  watched  his  rivals — and 
Eudora.  This  was  a  matter  of  life  and  death. 
There  was  no  time  for  food.  The  girl  revelled  in 
the  situation  to  the  full  of  her  untaught,  unthinking, 
primitive  nature.  She  gave  the  incident  a  tighter 
twist  by  languishing  at  them  in  turns.  She  smiled, 
she  sighed,  she  drove  them  mad  by  taking  crescent 
bites  out  of  a  slice  of  bread  and  exhibiting  the  havoc 
of  her  little,  white  teeth  with  a  delectably  dainty 
gluttony. 

Her  mother,  mumbling  her  supper  with  toothless 
impotency,  renewed  her  youth  vicariously,  and, 
while  she  quarrelled  with  her  daughter  from  the 
rising  of  the  sun  to  the  setting  of  the  same,  she 
added  the  last  straw  to  the  btirden  of  the  distracted 
suitors  by  announcing  what  a  comfort  Eudora  was 
to  her  and  how  handy  she  was  about  the  house. 

Warren  Rodney  supported  the  air  of  an  exile  at 
his  own  table.  Beyond  a  preliminary  greeting  to 
his  daughter's  guests,  he  said  nothing.  His  family, 
in  their  dealings  with  him,  seemed  to  accord  him  the 
exemptions  of  extreme  age.  He  ate  with  the  en 
thusiasm  of  a  man  to  whom  meals  have  become  the 
main  business  in  life. 

"How's  your  mine  up  to  Bad  Water  comin' 
along,  Iry?"  Orlando  inquired,  not  from  any  hospi 
table  interest  in  Ira's  claim,  but  because  he  had 

"5 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

sundry  romantic  interests  in  that  neighborhood  and 
hoped  to  make  use  of  the  young  prospector's  interest 
in  his  sister  by  securing  an  invitation  to  return 
with  him.  Ira  regarded  the  inquiry  in  the  light 
of  a  special  providence.  Here  was  his  chance  to 
impress  Eudora  with  the  splendor  of  his  prospects 
and  at  the  same  time  smite  the  claims  of  his  rivals, 
and  behold!  a  brother  of  his  lady  had  led  the  way. 

Ira  cleared  his  throat.  "They  tell  me  she  air 
like  to  yield  a  million  any  day."  At  this  Eudora 
gave  him  the  wealth  of  her  eyes,  and  her  mother 
reached  across  two  of  the  glowering  suitors  and 
dropped  a  hot  flapjack  on  his  plate. 

"Who  sez  that  she  air  likely  to  yield  a  million 
any  day?"  inquired  Ben  Swift,  openly  flouting  such 
prophecy.  "Yes,  who  sez  it?"  inquired  Hawks  and 
Taylor,  joining  forces  for  the  overthrow  of  the  com 
mon  enemy. 

"  '  They  sez '  is  easy  talkin',  shore  'nuff,"  mumbled 
Mrs.  Rodney,  as  she  helped  herself  to  butter  with  her 
own  knife. 

"  A  sharp  from  the  Smithsonian  Institute  at  Wash 
ington,  he  said  it,  and  he  has  taken  back  speciments 
with  him." 

"Ye  can't  keep  lackings  from  freightin'  round 
speciments — naw,  sir,  ye  can't,  not  till  the  fool- 
killer  has  finished  his  job."  Ben  Swift  charged  the 
table  with  the  statement  as  the  prosecution  subtly 
appeals  to  the  high  grade  of  intelligence  on  the 
part  of  the  jury.  The  point  told.  Eudora,  waver 
ing  in  her  donation  of  hot  flapjacks,  gave  them  to 
Ben  Swift. 


THE    RODNEYS    AT    HOME 

Hawks  now  leaned  across  the  table  with  a  sinuous, 
beguiling  motion,  and,  extending  his  long  neck  tow 
ards  the  prospector,  with  the  air  of  a  turkey-gobbler 
about  to  peck,  he  crooned,  softly:  "Ira,  it's  a  heap 
risky  puttin'  your  faith  in  maverick  sharps  that 
trail  around  the  country,  God-a 'mighty ing  it,  re 
naming  little,  old  rocks  into  precious  stones,  seein' 
gold  mines  in  every  gopher-hole  they  come  to. 
They  names  your  backyard  and  the  rocks  apper- 
tainin'  thereunto  a  heap  fashionable,  and  like  as 
not  some  sucker  gives  him  good  money  to  float  the 
trash  back  East." 

Mrs.  Rodney,  whose  partisanship  in  any  dis 
cussion  was  analogous  to  the  position  of  a  hen 
perching  on  a  fence  unable  to  decide  on  which 
side  to  flutter,  was  visibly  impressed  by  Hawks 's 
presentation  of  the  case.  Looking  towards  her 
daughter  from  under  the  eaves  of  her  sun-bonnet, 
she  "  'lowed  she  had  hearn  that  Bad  Water  was  hard 
on  the  skin,  an'  that  it  warn't  much  of  a  place  arter 
all.  Folks  over  thar  war  mostly  half -livers." 

Ira,  now  losing  all  semblance  of  policy  at  being 
thus  grievously  put  down  by  his  possible  mother- 
in-law,  "reckoned  that  herdin'  sheep  over  to  the 
Basin  was  a  heap  easier  on  the  skin  than  livin'  in  a 
comf  table  house  over  to  Bad  Water  " — this  as  a 
fling  at  Hawks,  who  herded  a  small  bunch  of  sheep 
"over  in  the  Basin." 

"Ai-yi,"  openly  scoffed  the  former  Miss  Tumlin; 
"talk's  cheap  before — "  She  would  have  con 
sidered  it  indelicate  to  supply  the  word  "marriage," 
but  by  breaking  off  her  sentence  before  she  came 

J17 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

to  the  pith  of  it  she  continued  to  maintain  the  pro 
prieties,  and  at  the  same  time  conveyed  to  her 
audience  that  she  was  too  old  and  experienced  to 
permit  any  fledgling  from  her  nest  to  be  caught,  for 
want  of  a  warning,  by  such  obvious  ante-matrimonial 
chaff  as  fair  promises. 

''Laws  a  massy!"  she  continued,  reminiscently, 
working  her  toothless  jaw  to  free  it  from  an  escaped 
splinter  from  the  snuff-brush.  "When  me  an'  paw 
war  keepin'  comp'ny,  satin  warn't  good  enough  for 
me.  He  'lowed  I  wuz  to  have  half  creation.  Sence 
we  wuz  married  he  'ain't  never  found  time,  endurin' 
all  these  years,  to  build  me  a  bird-house." 

The  unbuilt  bird-house  was  the  Banquo's  ghost 
at  the  Rodney  board,  Mrs.  Rodney  hearkening  back 
to  it  in  and  out  of  season.  If  the  family  made 
merry  over  a  chance  windfall  of  game  or  fresh 
vegetables,  a  prospect  of  possible  employment  for 
one  of  the  boys,  a  donation  of  money  from  Judith, 
Mrs.  Rodney  remembered  the  unbuilt  bird  -  house 
and  indulged  herself  to  the  full  of  melancholy.  It  is 
not  improbable  that,  if  she  had  been  asked  to  name 
the  chiefest  disappointment  of  her  wretched  married 
life,  she  would  have  mentioned  the  bird-house  that 
was  never  built. 

At  mention  of  it  Warren  Rodney  murmured  bro 
ken,  deprecatory  excuses.  His  dull  eyes  nervous 
ly  travelled  about  the  table  for  some  one  to  make 
excuses  for  him.  The  family  broke  into  hearty  peals 
of  laughter;  the  tragedy  of  the  first  generation  had 
grown  to  be  the  unfailing  source  of  merriment  for 
the  second. 

Ill 


THE    RODNEYS    AT    HOME 

''Maw,"  began  Orlando,  "the  reason  you  don't 
get  no  bird-house  built  out  hyear  is  that  they  ain't 
no  birds.  We  have  offered  time  and  time  again  to 
build  you  a  house  fo'  buzzuds,  they  bein'  the  only 
birds  hyearabouts,  but  you  'low  that  you  ain't 
fav'ble  to  tamin'  'em." 

"  I  wuz  raised  in  Tennessee,  an'  we-uns  had  a  house 
for  martins  made  out'n  gourds,  an'  it  was  pearty." 
The  pride  with  which  she  repeated  this  particular 
claim  to  honor  in  an  alien  land  never  diminished  with 
repetition.  As  she  advanced  further  through  the 
dim  perspective  of  years,  the  little  mountain  town 
in  Tennessee  became  more  and  more  the  centre  of 
cultivation  and  civic  importance.  The  desolate 
cabin  that  she  had  left  for  the  interminable  journey 
westward  was  recalled  flatteringly  through  the 
hallowing  mists  of  time.  The  children,  by  reason 
of  these  chronicles,  had  grown  to  regard  their 
mother  as  a  sort  of  princess  in  exile. 

"Mrs.  Rodney" — Swift  leaned  towards  her  and 
whispered  something  in  her  ear.  She  regarded  him 
tentatively,  then  grinned.  At  her  time  of  life,  why 
should  she  put  faith  in  the  promises  of  men?  "You 
fix  it  up,  an'  you  get  your  bird-house,"  was  the 
conclusion  of  his  sentence. 

While  this  discussion  had  been  in  progress  the 
viands  had  not  been  neglected  except  by  such  mem 
bers  of  the  company  as  had  been  bereft  of  appetite 
by  loftier  emotions — in  consequence  of  which  the 
table  appeared  to  have  sustained  a  visitation  of 
seventeen-year  locusts.  Eudora,  ever  economic  in 
the  value  she  placed  not  only  upon  herself  but  her 

119 


JUDITH    OP    THE    PLAINS 

environment,  proposed  to  her  guests  that  they  should 
wash  the  dishes,  an  art  in  which  they  were  by  no 
means  deficient,  being  no  exception  to  the  majority 
of  range  bachelors  in  their  skill  in  homely  pursuits. 
And  thus  it  came  to  pass  that  Eudora's  suitors, 
swathed  in  aprons,  meekly  washed  dishes  shoulder 
to  shoulder,  while  their  souls  craved  the  performance 
of  valorous  deeds. 

As  this  was  the  last  stage  station  on  the  way  to 
Lost  Trail,  Mary  Carmichael  was  perforce  obliged 
to  content  herself  till  Mrs.  Yellett  should  call  or 
send  for  her.  After  supper,  Chugg,  with  fresh 
horses  to  the  stage,  left  Rodney's,  apparently  for 
some  port  in  that  seemingly  pathless  sea  of  foot 
hills.  That  there  should  be  trails  and  defined  routes 
over  this  vast,  unvaried  stretch  of  space  seemed  more 
wonderful  to  Mary  than  the  charted  high-roads  of 
the  Atlantic.  The  foot-hills  seemed  to  have  grown 
during  the  long  journey  till  they  were  foot-hills  no 
longer;  they  had  come  to  be  the  smaller  peaks  of 
the  towering  range  that  had  formed  the  spine  of  the 
desert.  The  air,  that  seemed  to  have  lost  some  of 
its  crystalline  quality  on  the  flat  stretches  of  the 
plains,  was  again  sparkling  and  heady  in  the  clean 
hill  country.  It  stirred  the  pulses  like  some  rare 
vintage,  some  subtle  distillation  of  sun-warmed 
fruit  that  had  been  mellowing  for  centuries. 

Very  lonely  seemed  the  Rodney  home  among  the 
great  company  of  mountains.  A  brooding  desola 
tion  had  settled  on  it  at  close  of  day,  and  all  the 
laughter  and  light  footsteps  and  gayly  ringing 
voices  of  the  young  folk  could  not  dispel  the  feeling 

120 


THE    RODNEYS    AT    HOME 

of  being  adrift  in  a  tiny  shell  on  the  black  waters 
of  some  unknown  sea;  or  thus  it  seemed  to  the 
stranger  within  their  gate. 

Mrs.  Rodney  retired  within  the  flap  of  her  sun- 
bonnet  after  the  evening  meal,  settling  herself  in 
the  rocking-chair  as  if  it  were  some  sort  of  con 
veyance.  Her  family,  who  might  have  told  the 
hour  of  day  or  her  passing  mood  by  the  action  of 
the  chair,  knew  by  her  pacific  gait  that  she  would 
lament  the  unbuilt  bird-house  no  more  that  night. 
The  snuff-brush,  newly  replenished  from  the  tin 
box,  kept  perfect  time  to  the  motion  of  the  chair. 
With  the  lady  of  the  house  it  was  one  of  the  brief 
seasons  of  passing  content  vouchsafed  by  an  ample 
meal  and  a  good  digestion. 

Warren  Rodney  took  down  a  gun  from  the  wall 
and  began  to  clean  it.  His  hands  had  the  fumbling, 
indefinite  movements,  the  obscure  action,  directed 
by  a  brain  already  begun  to  crumble.  His  industry 
with  the  gun  was  of  a  part  with  the  impotent 
dawdling  in  the  garden.  His  eyes  would  seek  for 
the  rag  or  the  bottle  of  oil  in  a  dull,  glazed  way,  and, 
having  found  them,  he  would  forget  the  reason  of 
his  quest.  Not  once  that  evening  had  they  rested 
on  his  wife  or  any  member  of  his  family.  He  had 
shown  no  interest  in  any  of  the  small  happenings 
of  home,  the  frank  rivalry  of  Eudora's  suitors,  the 
bickerings  of  the  girls  and  boys  over  the  division 
of  household  labor.  The  one  thing  that  had  mo 
mentarily  aroused  his  somnolent  intelligence  was  a 
revival  of  his  wife's  plaint  anent  the  unbuilt  bird- 
house.  That,  and  a  certain  furtive  anxiety  during 

I2T 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

supper  lest  his  daughter  Eudora  should  forget  to 
keep  his  plate  piled  high,  were  the  only  signs  of  a 
participation  in  the  life  about  him. 

From  one  of  the  rooms  that  opened  to  the  world 
like  a  stage  to  the  audience,  Mrs.  Rodney  kept  her 
evening  vigil.  The  last  faint  amethystine  haze  on 
the  mountains  was  deepening.  They  towered  about 
the  valley  where  the  house  lay,  with  a  challenging 
immensity,  mocking  the  pitiful  grasp  of  these 
pygmies  on  the  thousand  hills.  The  snow  on  the 
taller  of  the  peaks  still  held  the  high  lights.  But 
all  the  valleys  and  the  spaces  between  the  mountains 
were  wrapped  in  sombre  shadows;  the  crazy  house 
invading  the  great  company  of  mountains,  pene 
trating  brazenly  to  the  very  threshold  of  their 
silent  councils,  seemed  but  a  pitiful  ant-hill  at  the 
mercy  of  some  possible  giant  tread.  The  ill-ad 
justed  family,  disputing  every  inch  of  ground  with 
the  wilderness,  became  invested  with  a  dignity 
quite  out  of  keeping  with  its  achievements.  Their 
very  weaknesses  and  vanities,  old  Sally  still  clinging 
to  her  sun-bonnet  and  her  limp  rose-colored  skirts, 
an  eternal  requiem  for  the  dead  and  gone  com 
plexion,  lost  the  picturesqueness  of  the  pioneer  and 
ranked  as  universal  qualities,  admissible  in  the 
austerest  setting.  Perhaps  in  some  far  distant  coun 
cil  of  the  Daughters  of  the  Pioneers  a  prospective 
member  of  the  house  of  Rodney  would  unctuously 
announce:  "My  great  -  great  -  grandmother  was  a 
Miss  Tumlin  of  Tennessee;  great-great-grandfather's 
first  wife  had  been  a  Sioux  squaw.  Isn't  it  inter 
esting  and  romantic?" 


THE    RODNEYS    AT   HOME 

Eudora  now  came  to  her  mother  with  great  news. 
Hawks  had  taken  the  first  opportunity  of  being 
alone  with  her  to  tell  her  of  Jim's  release  from  jail 
and  of  his  abortive  encounter  with  Simpson  in  the 
eating-house.  He  had  not  deferred  the  telling  from 
any  feeling  of  reticence  regarding  the  disclosure  of 
family  affairs  before  strangers.  News  travels  in 
the  desert  by  some  unknown  agency.  Twenty- 
four  hours  after  a  thing  happened  it  would  be  safe 
to  assume  that  every  cow  and  sheep  outfit  in  a 
radius  of  three  hundred  miles  would  be  discussing 
it  over  their  camp-fires;  and  this  long  before  there 
was  an  inch  of  telegraph  wire  or  a  railroad  tire  in 
the  country.  Hawks  had  merely  reserved  the  news 
for  Eudora's  private  ear  because  he  hoped  thus  to 
gain  an  advantage  over  his  three  rivals. 

"Ai-yi!"  said  old  Sally,  sharply,  and  the  chair 
came  to  an  abrupt  stand-still.  ''In  the  name  o' 
Heaven,  how  kem  they  to  let  him  out?"  Mrs. 
Rodney's  knowledge  of  the  law  was  of  the  vaguest ; 
and  if  incarceration  would  keep  a  prisoner  out  of 
more  grievous  trouble,  she  could  not  understand 
giving  him  his  freedom.  To  her  the  case  was 
analogous  to  releasing  a  child  from  the  duress  of  a 
corner  and  turning  him  loose  to  play  with  matches. 
"How  kem  they  to  let  him  out?"  she  repeated, 
the  still  rocking-chair  conveying  the  impersonal 
dignity  of  the  pulpit  or  the  justice-seat.  "I  'ain't 
hearn  tell  of  so  pearty  a  couple  as  the  jail  an'  Jim 
in  years." 

The  meaning  that  she  put  into  her  words  belied 
their  harsh  face-value.  With  Jim  in  jail,  her  mind 

123 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

was  comparatively  at  rest  about  him.  She  knew 
he  had  been  branding  other  men's  cattle  since  the 
destruction  of  his  sheep,  and  she  knew  the  fate  of 
cattle-thieves,  and  that  Jim  would  be  no  exception 
to  the  rule.  With  her  purely  instinctive  maternity, 
she  had  been  fond  of  Jim.  He  had  been  one  more 
boy  to  mother.  She  harbored  no  ill-feeling  tow 
ards  him  that  he  was  not  her  own.  Moreover,  she 
wanted  no  gallows-tree  intermingled  with  the  an 
nals  of  her  family.  It  suited  her  convenience  at  this 
particular  time  that  Jim  should  stay  in  jail.  That 
he  had  been  given  his  freedom  loosed  the  phials  of 
her  condemnation  on  the  incompetents  that  released 
him. 

"I  low  they  wuz  grudgin'  him  the  mouthful  they 
fed  to  him,  that  they  ack  so  outdaciously  plumb 
locoed  as  to  tu'n  a  man  out  to  get  hisself  hanged. 
An'  Jim  never  wuz  a  hearty  eater.  He  never  seemed 
to  relish  his  food,  even  when  he  wuz  a  growin'  kid." 

A  pale,  twinkling  point  of  light,  faintly  glimmering 
in  the  vast  solitudes  above  the  billowing  peaks, 
suddenly  burst  into  a  dazzling  constellation  before 
the  girl  and  her  mother.  "  It's  a  warning!"  shivered 
the  old  woman.  "  Some'um's  bound  to  happen." 
She  began  to  rock  herself  slowly.  The  thing  she 
dreaded  had  already  come  to  pass  in  her  imagination. 
Jim  a  free  man  was  Jim  a  dead  man.  He  was  so 
dead  that  already  his  step-mother  was  going  on  with 
a  full  acceptance  of  the  idea.  She  reviewed  her 
relationship  to  him.  No,  she  had  nothing  to  blame 
herself  for.  He  had  been  more  troublesome  than 
any  of  her  own  children  and  for  that  reason  she  had 

124 


THE    RODNEYS    AT    HOME 

been  more  liberal  with  the  rod.  And  yet — the  face 
of  the  squaw  rose  before  her,  wraithlike,  accusing! 
"Ai-yi!"  she  said;  but  this  time  her  favorite  exple 
tive  was  hardly  more  than  a  sigh. 

"I  mind  Jim  when  he  first  kem  to  us,"  she  said, 
more  to  herself  than  to  Eudora,  who  sat  at  her  feet. 
The  impending  tragedy  in  the  family  had  robbed 
her  of  all  the  joy  in  her  suitors.  They  sat  on  a 
bench  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  house,  divided 
by  the  very  nature  of  their  interests  yet  companions 
in  misery. 

"He  wuz  scarce  four,  an'  yet  he  had  never  been 
broke  of  the  habit  of  sucking  his  thumb.  Ef  he'd 
ben  my  child,  I'd  a  lammed  it  out'n  him  before  he'd 
a  seen  two,  but  seein'  he  was  aged  for  an  infant 
havin'  such  practices,  I  tried  to  shame  him  out'n  it. 
But,  Lord  a  massy,  men  folks  is  hard  to  shame  even 
at  four.  I  hissed  at  him  like  a  gyander  every  time 
I  seen  him  do  it.  Now  I'd  a  knowed  better — I'd 
a  sewed  it  up  in  a  pepper  rag." 

"What's  suckin'  his  thumb  as  an  infant  got  to  do 
with  his  gettin'  lynched  now?"  demanded  Eudora, 
with  the  scepticism  of  the  second  generation. 

"Wait  till  you-uns  has  children  of  your  own," 
sniffed  her  mother,  from  the  assured  position  of 
maternal  experience,  "an'  see  the  infant  that's 
allowed  to  suck  its  thumb  has  the  makin's  in  him 
of  a  felon  or  a  unfortunit."  She  rocked  a  slow  ac 
companiment  to  her  dismal  prophecy. 

Eudora's  eyes,  big  with  wonder,  were  fixed  on  the 
crouching  flank  of  a  distant  mountain.  Her  mother 
broke  the  silence.  Not  often  did  they  speak  thus 
9  125 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

intimately.  Old  Sally  belonged  to  that  class  of 
mothers  who  feel  a  pride  in  their  reticent  dealings 
with  their  daughters,  and  who  consider  the  man 
agement  of  all  affairs  of  the  heart  peculiarly  the 
province  of  youth  and  inexperience. 

But  to-night  she  was  prompted  by  a  force  beyond 
her  ken  to  speak  to  the  girl.  "Eudory,  in  pickin' 
out  one  of  them  men,"  she  jerked  her  thumb  towards 
the  opposite  side  of  the  house,  "git  one  tha's  clar 
o'  the  trick  o'  stampedin'  round  other  wimming. 
It's  bound  to  kem  back  to  ye,  same  as  counterfeit 
money." 

Eudora  giggled.  She  was  of  an  age  when  the 
fascinations  of  curiosity  as  to  the  unknown  male 
animal  prompt  lavish  conjecture.  "I  lowed  they 
all  stampeded." 

"Yes,"  leered  the  old  woman — and  she  grinned 
the  whole  horrid  length  of  her  empty  gums — "the 
most  of  'em  does.  But  you  must  shet  your  eyes 
to  it.  The  moment  they  know  you  swallow  it, 
they's  wuthless,  like  horses  that  has  run  away 
once." 

" Hark!"  said  Eudora.     "Ain't  that  wheels?" 

"It  be,"  answered  her  mother.  "It  be  that  old 
Ma'am  Yellett  after  her  gov'ment." 


IX 

MRS.   YELLETT    AND    HER   "GOV'MENT" 

THE  buckboard  drew  up  to  the  back  or  open- 
faced  entrance  of  the  Rodney  house  with  a 
splendid  sweep,  terminating  in  a  brilliantly  staccato 
halt,  as  if  to  convey  to  the  residents  the  flatter 
ing  implication  that  their  house  was  reached  via  a 
gravelled  driveway,  rather  than  across  lumpish  in 
equalities  of  prairie  overgrown  with  cactus  stumps 
and  clumps  of  sage-brush.  From  the  buckboard 
stepped  a  figure  whose  agility  was  compatible  with 
her  driving. 

No  sketchy  outline  can  do  justice  to  Mrs.  Yellett 
or  her  costume.  Like  the  bee,  the  ant,  and  other 
wonders  of  the  economy  of  nature,  she  was  not  to 
be  disposed  of  with  a  glance.  And  yet  there  was 
no  attempt  at  subtlety  on  her  part ;  on  the  contrary, 
no  one  could  have  an  appearance  of  greater  candor 
than  the  lady  whose  children  Mary  Carmichael  had 
come  West  to  teach.  Her  costume  was  a  thing  apart, 
suggesting  neither  sex,  epoch,  nor  personal  vanity, 
but  what  it  lacked  of  these  more  usual  sartorial 
characteristics,  it  more  than  made  up  in  a  passion 
ate  individualism ;  an  excessively  short  skirt,  so  inno 
cent  of  "fit"  or  "hang"  in  its  wavering,  indetermi- 

127 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

nate  outline  as  to  suggest  the  possible  workmanship 
of  teeth  rather  than  of  scissors;  and  riding-boots 
coming  well  to  the  knee,  displaying  a  well-shaped, 
ample  foot,  perched  aloft  on  the  usual  high  heel 
that  cow-punchers  affect  as  the  expression  of  their 
chiefest  vanity.  But  Mrs.  Yellett  was  not  wholly 
mannish  in  her  tastes,  and  to  offset  the  boots  she 
wore  a  bodice  of  the  type  that  a  generation  ago  used 
to  be  known  as  a  "basque."  It  fitted  her  ample 
form  as  a  cover  fits  a  pin-cushion,  the  row  of  jet 
buttons  down  the  front  looking  as  if  a  deep  breath 
might  cause  them  to  shoot  into  space  at  any  moment 
with  the  force  of  Mauser  bullets. 

Such  a  garb  was  not,  after  all,  incongruous  with 
this  original  lady's  weather-beaten  face.  Her  skin 
was  tanned  to  a  fine  russet,  showing  tiny,  radiating 
lines  about  the  eyes  when  they  twinkled  with 
laughter,  which  was  often.  No  individual  feature 
was  especially  striking,  but  the  general  impression 
of  her  countenance  was  of  animation  and  activity, 
mingled  with  geniality  and  with  native  shrewd 
ness. 

"Howdy,  Miz  Yellett,"  called  out  old  Sally, 
hitching  her  rocker  forward,  in  an  excitement  she 
could  ill  conceal.  "You-uns'  gov'ment  come,  an' 
she  ain't  much  bigger 'n  a  lettle  green  gourd.  Don't 
seem  to  have  drawed  all  the  growth  comin'  to  her 
yit." 

"In  roundin'  up  the  p'ints  of  my  gov'ment,  Mis' 
Rodney,  you  don't  want  to  forget  that  green  gourds 
and  green  grapes  is  mighty  apt  to  belong  to  the 
sour  fambly,  when  they  hangs  beyant  your  reach," 

128 


MRS.  YELLETT  AND  HER   "GOV'MENT" 

"Ai-yi!"  grimaced  old  Sally.  "It's  tol'able  far 
to  send  East  for  green  fruit.  We  can  take  our  own 
pep 'mint." 

The  prospective  advent  of  a  governess  in  the 
Yellett  family,  moreover,  one  from  that  mysterious 
centre  of  culture,  the  East,  had  not  only  rent  the 
neighborhood  with  bitter  factions,  but  had  sub 
mitted  the  Yelletts  to  the  reproach  of  ostentation. 
In  those  days  there  were  no  schools  in  that  portion 
of  the  Wind  River  country  where  the  Yelletts 
grazed  their  flocks  and  herds.  Parents  anxious  to 
obtain  "educational  advantages"  —  that  was  the 
term,  irrespective  of  the  age  of  the  student  or  the 
school  he  attended — sent  them,  often,  with  parental 
blindness  as  to  the  equivocal  nature  of  the  blessing 
thus  conferred,  to  visit  friends  in  the  neighboring 
towns  while  they  "got  their  education."  Or  they 
went  uneducated,  or  they  picked  up  such  crumbs 
of  knowledge  as  fell  from  the  scant  parental  board. 
But  never,  up  to  the  present  moment,  had  an y  one 
flown  into  the  face  of  neighborly  precedent  except 
sturdy  Sarah  Yellett. 

Old  Sally,  in  her  eagerness  to  convey  that  she  was 
in  no  degree  impressed  with  the  pedagogical  im 
portation,  like  many  another  belligerent  lost  the 
first  round  of  the  battle  through  an  excess  of 
personal  feeling.  But  though  down,  Sally  was  by 
no  means  out,  and  after  a  brief  session  with  the 
snuff-brush  she  returned  to  the  field  prepared  to 
maintain  that  the  Yellett  children,  for  all  their 
pampering  in  the  matter  of  having  a  governess 
imported  for  their  benefit,  were  no  better  off  than 

129 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

her  own  brood,  who  had  taken  the  learning  the  gods 
provided. 

"Too  bad,  Miz  Yellett,  that  you-uns  had  to  hire 
that  gov'ment  without  lookin'  over  her  p'ints.  I've 
ben  takin'  her  in  durin'  supper,  and  she'll  never  be 
able  to  thrash  'em  past  Clem.  She  mought  be  able 
to  thrash  Clem  if  she  got  plumb  mad,  these  yere 
slim  wimmin  is  tarrible  wiry  'n'  active  at  such  times, 
but  she'll  never  be  able  to  thrash  bey  ant  her." 
And  having  injected  the  vitriolic  drop  in  her  neigh 
bor's  cup  of  happiness,  Old  Sally  struck  a  gait  on 
her  chair  which  was  the  equivalent  of  a  gallop. 

But  Mrs.  Yellett  was  not  the  sort  of  antagonist  to 
be  left  gaping  on  the  road,  awed  to  silence  by  the 
action  of  a  rocking-chair,  no  matter  how  brilliant. 

"  I  reckon  I  can  thrash  my  own  children  when  it's 
needed,  without  gettin'  in  help  from  the  East,  or 
hereabouts  either,  for  that  matter.  If  other  folks 
would  only  take  out  their  public-spirited  reformin' 
tendencies  on  their  own  famblies,  there'd  be  a  heap 
less  lynchin'  likely  to  happen  round  the  country  in 
the  course  of  the  next  ten  years." 

Old  Sally  let  the  home-thrust  pass.  "Who  ever 
hearn  tell  of  a  good  teacher  that  wasn't  a  fine 
thrasher  in  the  bargain?"  She  swung  the  chair 
about  with  a  pivotal  motion,  as  if  she  were  address 
ing  an  assemblage  instead  of  a  single  listener,  and 
then,  bethinking  herself  of  a  clinching  illustration, 
she  called  aloud  to  her  daughter  to  bear  witness. 
"Eudory!  Eu-do-ry!  You-do-ry!" 

"Ye-'s  ma'am,"  drawled  the  daughter,  coming 
most  unwillingly  from  the  open-faced  room  opposite, 

130 


MRS.  YELLETT   AND   HER  "GOV'MENT" 

where  she  had  been  inciting  all  four  of  the  suitors  to 
battle. 

"What  was  it  they  called  that  teacher  down  to 
Caspar  that  larruped  the  hide  off  n  the  boys?" 

"A  fine  dis-a-£ty-narian,  maw." 

"Yes,  that's  it — a  dis-a-£/;y-narian.  What  kin  a 
lettle  green  gourd  like  her  know  'bout  dis- apply- 
in?" 

"Your  remarks  shore  remind  me  of  a  sayin'  that 
'  the  discomfort  of  havin'  to  swallow  other  folks'  dust 
causes  a  heap  of  anxiety  over  their  reckless  driving. ' ' ' 

Mrs.  Yellett  flicked  her  riding-boot  with  her  whip. 
Her  voice  dropped  a  couple  of  tones,  her  accent 
became  one  of  honeyed  sweetness. 

"Your  consumin'  anxiety  regardin*  my  gov'ment 
and  my  children  shore  reminds  me  of  a  narrative 
appertainin'  to  two  dawgs.  Them  dawgs  was  neigh 
bors,  livin'  in  adj'inin'  yards  separated  by  a  fence, 
and  one  day  one  of  them  got  a  good  meaty  bone  and 
settled  hisself  down  to  the  enj  'yment  thereof.  And 
his  intimate  friend  and  neighbor  on  the  other  side 
of  the  fence,  who  had  no  bone  to  engage  his  faculties, 
he  began  to  fret  hisself  'bout  the  business  of  his 
friend.  S'pose  he  was  to  choke  hisself  over  that 
bone.  S'pose  the  meat  disagreed  with  him.  And 
he  begins  to  bark  warnin's,  but  the  dawg  with 
the  bone  he  keeps  right  on.  But  the  other  dawg 
he  dashes  hisself  again  the  fence  and  he  scratches 
with  his  claws.  He  whines  pitiful,  he's  that  anxious 
about  his  friend.  But  the  dawg  with  the  bone  he 
went  right  on  till  he  gnawed  it  down  to  the  last 
morsel,  and,  goin'  to  the  hole  in  the  fence  whar  his 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

friend  had  kep'  that  anxious  vigil,  he  says:  'Friend, 
the  only  thing  that  consoled  me  while  having  to 
endure  the  anguish  of  eatin'  that  bone  was  the 
thought  of  your  watchful  sympathy!'  Which  bein' 
the  case,  I'd  thank  you  to  tell  me  whar  I  can  find 
my  gov'ment." 

"Ai-yi!"  said  old  Sally.  "I  ain't  seein'  no  bone 
this  deal.  Just  a  lettle  green  gourd  's  all  I  see  with 
my  strongest  specs." 

Mary  Carmichael,  in  one  of  the  inner  rooms,  was 
writing  a  home  letter,  which  was  chiefly  remarkable 
for  what  it  failed  to  relate.  It  gave  long  accounts 
of  the  scenery,  it  waxed  didactic  over  the  future  of 
the  country;  but  the  adventures  of  the  trip,  with  her 
incidental  acquaintance  with  the  Daxes  and  Chugg, 
were  not  recorded.  Eudora  announced  the  arrival 
of  Mrs.  Yellett,  and  Mary,  at  the  news,  dropped  the 
contents  of  her  portfolio  and  started  up  with  much 
the  feeling  a  marooned  sailor  might  have  on  hearing 
a  sail  has  been  sighted.  At  this  particular  stage  of 
her  career  Miss  Carmichael  had  not  developed  the 
philosophy  that  later  in  life  was  destined  to  become 
her  most  valuable  asset.  Her  sense  of  humor  no 
longer  responded  to  the  vagaries  of  pioneer  life.  The 
comedy  element  was  coming  a  little  too  thick  and 
fast.  She  was  getting  a  bit  heart-sick  for  a  glimpse 
of  her  own  kind,  a  word  with  some  one  who  spoke 
her  language.  And  here,  at  last,  was  the  woman 
who  had  written  such  a  charming  letter,  who  had 
so  graciously  intimated  that  there  was  room  for  her 
at  the  hearth-stone.  Mary  was,  indeed,  eager  to 
make  the  acquaintance  of  Mrs.  Yellett. 

132 


MRS.  YELLETT   AND    HER   "GOV'MENT" 

To  the  end  of  her  life  she  never  forgot  that  first 
meeting  —  the  perfect  confidence  with  which  she 
followed  Eudora  to  the  open  room,  the  ensuing  blank 
amazement,  the  utter  inability  to  reconcile  the  Mrs. 
Yellett  of  the  letter  with  the  Mrs.  Yellett  of  fact. 
The  lamp  on  the  table,  burning  feebly,  seemed  to 
burst  into  a  thousand  shooting  -  stars  as  the  girl 
struggled  with  her  tears.  Home  was  so  far,  and 
Mrs.  Yellett  was  so  different  from  what  she  had 
expected!  And  yet,  as  she  felt  her  fingers  crush 
in  the  grip  of  that  hard  but  not  unkindly  hand, 
there  was  in  the  woman's  rugged  personality  a 
sustaining  quality;  and,  thinking  again  of  Archie's 
prospects,  Mary  was  not  altogether  sorry  that  she 
had  come. 

''You  be  a  right  smart  young  maverick  not  to  get 
lost  none  on  this  long  trail,  and  no  one  to  p'int  you 
right  if  you  strayed,"  commented  Mary's  patroness, 
affably.  ''But  we  won't  roominate  here  no  longer 
than  we  can  help.  It's  too  hard  on  old  Ma'am 
Rodney.  She's  just  'bout  the  color  of  withered 
cabbage  now,  'long  of  me  havin'  you." 

While  she  talked,  Mrs.  Yellett  picked  up  Mary's 
trunk  and  bags  and  stowed  them  in  the  back  of  the 
buckboard  with  the  ease  with  which  another  wom 
an  might  handle  pasteboard  boxes.  One  or  two 
of  the  male  Rodneys  offered  to  help,  but  she  waved 
them  aside  and  lashed  the  luggage  to  the  buck- 
board,  handling  the  ropes  with  the  skill  of  an  old 
sailor.  The  entire  Rodney  family  and  the  suitors 
of  Eudora  assembled  to  witness  the  departure.  "  It's 
a  heap  friendly  of  you  to  fret  so,"  was  the  parting 

133 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

stab  of  Sarah  Yellett  to  Sally  Rodney ;  and  she  swung 
the  buckboard  about,  cleared  the  cactus  stumps  in  the 
Rodney  door-yard,  and  gained  the  mountain-road. 

"Ai-yi!"  said  old  Sally.  "What's  this  country 
comin'  to?" 

"A  few  more  women,  thank  God!"  remarked  Ira. 
Eudora  had  just  snubbed  him,  and  he  put  a  wealth 
of  meaning  into  his  look  after  the  vanishing  buck- 
board. 

The  night  was  magnificent.  From  horizon  to 
horizon  the  sky  was  sown  with  quivering  points  of 
light.  Each  straggling  clump  of  sage-brush,  rocky 
ledge,  and  bowlder  borrowed  a  beauty  not  its  own 
from  the  yellow  radiance  of  the  stars. 

They  had  gone  a  good  two  miles  before  Mary's 
patroness  broke  the  silence  with,  "Nothing  plumb 
stampedes  my  temper  like  that  Rodney  outfit — old 
Sally  buckin'  an'  pitchin'  in  her  rockin'-chair  same 
as  if  she  was  breakin'  a  bronco,  an'  that  Eudory 
always  corallin',  deceivin',  and  jiltin*  one  outfit  of 
men  after  another.  If  she  was  a  daughter  of  mine, 
I'd  medjure  her  length  across  my  knee,  full  growed 
and  courted  though  she  is.  The  only  one  of  the  out 
fit  that's  wuth  while  is  Judith,  an'  she  ain't  old 
woman  Rodney's  girl,  neither.  You  hyeard  that 
already,  did  you?  Well,  this  yere  country  may  be 
lackin'  in  population,  but  it's  handy  as  a  sewin'- 
circle  in  distributin'  news." 

Mary  mentioned  Leander.  "  Yes,"  answered  Mrs. 
Yellett,  reflectively,  "  Leander 's  mouth  do  run  about 
eight  and  a  half  octaves.  Sometimes  I  don't  blame 
his  wife  for  bangin'  down  the  lid." 

134 


MRS.  YELLETT  AND   HER   "GOV'MENT" 

They  talked  of  Jim  Rodney's  troubles,  and  the 
growing  hatred  between  sheep  and  cattle  men, 
because  of  range  rights. 

"Now  that  pore  Jim  had  a  heap  of  good  citizen 
in  him,  before  that  pestiferous  cattle  outfit  druv' 
his  sheep  over  the  cliff.  Relations  'twixt  sheep  and 
cattle  men  in  this  yere  country  is  strained  beyant 
the  goin'-back  place,  I  can  tell  you.  My  pistol-eye 
'ain't  had  a  wink  of  sleep  for  nigh  on  eighteen  months, 
an'  is  broke  to  wakefulness  same  as  a  teethin'babe. 

"  Jim  was  wild  as  a  coyote  'fore  he  marries  that 
girl.  She  come  all  the  way  from  Topeka,  Kansas, 
thinking  she  was  goin'  to  find  a  respectable  home, 
and  when  she  come  out  hyear  and  found  the  place 
was  a  dance-hall,  she  cried  all  the  time.  She  didn't 
add  none  to  the  hilarity  of  the  place.  An'  one  day 
Jim  he  strolled  in,  an'  seein'  the  girl  a-cryin'  like 
a  freshet  and  wishin'  she  was  dead,  he  inquired  the 
cause.  She  told  him  how  that  old  harpy  wrote  her, 
an',bein'  an  orphant,she  come  out  thinkin'  she  was 
goin'  to  a  respectable  place  as  waitress,  an'  Jim  he 
'lowed  it  was  a  case  for  the  law.  He  was  a  little  shy 
of  twenty  at  the  time,  just  a  young  cockerel  'bout 
br'ilin'  size.  Some  of  the  old  hangers-on  'bout  the 
place  they  see  a  heap  of  fun  in  Jim's  takin'  on  'bout 
the  girl,  he  bein'  that  young  that  he  had  scarce 
growed  a  pair  of  spurs  yet.  An'  one  of  'em  says  to 
him,  '  Sonny,  if  you're  afeerd  that  this  yere  corral  is 
onjurious  to  the  young  lady's  morals,  we'll  call  in 
the  gospel  sharp,  if  you'll  stand  for  the  brand. '  Now 
Jim  hadn't  a  cent,  nor  no  callin',  nor  a  prospect  to 
his  back,  but  he  struts  up  to  the  man  that  was  doin' 

135 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

the  talkin',  game  as  a  bantam,  an'  he  says,  'The 
lady  ain't  rakin'  in  anythin'  but  a  lettle  white  chip, 
in  takin'  me,  but  if  she's  willin',  here's  my  hand.' 

"At  which  that  pore  young  thing  cried  harder 
than  ever.  Well,  Jim  he  up  an'  marries  the  girl 
an'  it  turns  out  fine.  He  gets  a  job  herdin'  sheep  on 
shares,  an'  she  stays  with  the  Rodney  outfit  till  he 
saves  enough  to  build  a  cabin.  Things  is  goin'  with 
Jim  like  a  prairie  afire.  In  a  few  years  he  acquires 
a  herd  of  his  own,  a  fine  herd,  not  a  scabby  sheep 
in  the  bunch.  Alida  she  makes  him  the  best  kind 
of  a  wife,  them  kids  is  the  pride  of  his  life,  and  then, 
them  cursed  cattle-men  do  for  him.  Of  course,  he 
takes  to  rustlin' ;  I'd  do  more'n  rustle  if  they'd  touch 
mine." 

The  pair  of  broncos  that  Mrs.  Yellett  was  driving 
humped  their  backs  like  cats  as  they  climbed  the 
steep  mountain  -  road.  With  her,  driving  was  an 
exact  science.  It  was  a  treat  to  see  her  handle  the 
ribbons.  Mary  asked  some  trifling  question  about 
the  children  and  it  elicited  the  information  that 
one  of  the  girls  was  named  Cacta.  "Yes,"  she  said, 
"I  like  new  names  for  children,  not  old  ones  that  is 
all  frazzled  out  and  folks  has  suffered  an'  died  to. 
It  seems  to  start  'em  fair,  like  playin'  cards  with  a 
new  deck.  Cacta's  my  oldest  daughter,  and  I  named 
her  after  the  flowers  that  blooms  all  over  the  desert 
spite  of  everything,  heat,  cold,  an'  rain  an'  alkali 
dust — the  cactus  blooms  right  through  it  all.  Even 
its  own  thorns  don't  seem  to  fret  it  none.  I  called 
her  plain  Cactus  till  she  was  three,  and  along  came 
a  sharp  studyin'  the  flowers  an'  weeds  out  here,  and 

136 


MRS.   YELLETT   AND   HER   "GOV'MENT" 

lie  'lowed  that  Cactus  was  a  boy's  name  an'  Cacta 
was  for  girls  —  called  it  a  feemmm  tarnation,  or 
somethin'  like  that,  so  we  changed  it.  My  second 
daughter  'ain't  got  quite  so  much  of  a  name.  She's 
called  Clematis.  That  holds  its  own  out  here  pretty 
well,  'long  by  the  willows  on  the  creek.  Paw  'lowed 
he  was  terrible  afraid  that  I'd  name  the  youngest 
girl  Sage-brush,  so  he  spoke  to  call  her  Lessie  Viola, 
an'  I  giv'  in.  The  boys  is  all  plain  named,  Ben, 
Jack,  and  Ned.  Paw  wouldn't  hear  of  a  fancy  brand 
bein'  run  onto  'em." 

The  temperature  fell  perceptibly  as  they  climbed 
the  heights,  and  the  air  had  the  heady  quality  of 
wine.  It  was  awesome,  this  entering  into  the  great 
company  of  the  mountains.  Presently  Mary  caught 
the  glimmer  of  something  white  against  the  dark 
background  of  the  hills.  It  gleamed  like  a  snow 
bank,  though  they  were  far  below  the  snow-line  on 
the  mountain-side  they  were  climbing. 

"Well,  here  be  camp,"  announced  Mrs.  Yellett. 
What  Mary  had  taken  for  a  bank  of  snow  was  a 
huge,  canvas  -  covered  wagon.  Several  dogs  ran 
down  to  greet  the  buckboard,  barking  a  welcome. 
In  the  background  was  a  shadowy  group,  huge  of 
stature,  making  its  way  down  the  mountain-path. 
"And  here's  all  the  children  come  to  meet  teacher." 
Mrs.  Yellett 's  tone  was  tenderly  maternal,  as  if  it 
was  something  of  a  feat  for  the  children  to  walk  down 
the  mountain  -  path  to  meet  their  teacher.  But 
Mary,  straining  her  eyes  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  her 
little  pupils,  could  discover  nothing  but  a  group  of 
persons  that  seemed  to  be  the  sole  survivors  of  some 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

titanic  race.  Not  one  among  them  but  seemed  to 
have  reached  the  high-water  mark  of  six  feet.  Was 
it  an  optical  illusion,  a  hallucination  born  of  the 
wonderful  starlight?  Or  were  they  as  huge  as  they 
seemed?  The  young  men  looked  giants,  the  girls 
as  if  they  had  wandered  out  of  the  first  chapters  of 
Genesis.  Their  mother  introduced  them.  They  all 
had  huge,  warm,  perspiring  hands,  with  grips  like 
bears.  Mary  looked  about  for  a  house  into  which 
she  could  escape  to  gather  her  scattered  faculties, 
but  the  starlight,  yellow  and  luminous,  revealed 
none.  There  was  the  huge  covered  wagon  that  she 
had  taken  for  a  snow-bank,  there  was  a  small  tent, 
there  were  two  light  wagons,  there  were  dogs  in 
numerable,  but  there  was  no  sign  of  a  house. 

"What  do  you  think  of  it?"  inquired  Mrs.  Yellett, 
smilingly,  anticipating  a  favorable  answer. 

"It's  almost  too  beautiful  to  leave."  Mary  in 
nocently  supposed  that  Mrs.  Yellett  referred  to  the 
starlit  landscape.  "But  I'm  so  tired,  Mrs.  Yellett, 
and  so  glad  to  get  to  a  real  home  at  last,  that  I'm 
going  to  ask  if  you  will  not  show  me  the  way  to 
the  house  so  that  I  may  go  to  bed  right  away." 

This  apparently  reasonable  request  was  greeted 
by  a  fine  chorus  of  titanic  laughter  from  Mary's 
pupils.  Mrs.  Yellett  waved  her  hand  over  the  sur 
rounding  landscape  in  comprehensive  gesture. 

"Ain't  all  this  large  enough  for  you?"  she  asked, 
gayly. 

"You  mean  the  mountains?  They're  wonderful. 
But — I  really  think  I'd  like  to  go  in  the  house." 

"I  shore  hope  you  ain't  figgerin'  on  goin'  into  no 

138 


MRS.   YELLETT  AND   HER   "GOV'MENT" 

house,  'cause  there  ain't  no  house  to  go  into."  She 
laughed  merrily,  as  if  the  idea  of  such  an  effete 
luxury  as  a  house  were  amusing.  ' '  This  yere  fam 
ily  'ain't  ever  had  a  house — it  camps." 

Mary  gasped.  The  real  meaning  of  words  no 
longer  had  the  power  of  making  an  impression  on 
her.  If  Mrs.  Yellett  had  announced  that  they  were 
in  the  habit  of  sleeping  in  the  moon,  it  would  not 
have  surprised  her. 

"If  you  are  tired,  an'  want  to  go  to  bed,  you  can 
shuck  off  and  lie  down  any  time.  Ben,  Jack,  Ned, 
go  an'  set  with  paw  in  the  tent  while  the  gov'ment 
gets  ready  for  bed.  Cacta  and  Clem,  you  help  me 
with  them  quilts." 

Mary  stood  helpless  in  the  wilderness  while  quilts 
and  pillows  were  fetched  somewhere  from  the  ad 
jacent  scenery,  and  Mrs.  Yellett  asked  her,  with  the 
gravity  of  a  Pullman  porter  interrogating  a  passen 
ger  as  to  the  location  of  head  and  foot,  if  she  liked 
to  sleep  "light  or  dark."  She  chose  "dark"  at 
random,  hating  to  display  her  ignorance  of  the 
alternatives,  with  the  happy  result  that  her  bed 
was  made  up  to  leeward  of  the  great  sheep-wagon, 
in  a  nice  little  corner  of  the  State  of  Wyoming. 
Mary  was  grateful  that  she  had  chosen  dark. 

As  she  dozed  off,  she  was  reminded  of  a  certain 
magazine  illustration  that  Archie  had  pinned  over 
his  bed  after  the  aunts  had  given  a  grudging  consent 
to  this  westward  journey.  There  was  a  line  be 
neath  the  pictorial  decoy  which  read:  "Ranch  Life 
in  the  New  West."  And  there  were  piazzas  with 
fringed  Mexican  hammocks,  wild -grass  cushions, 

139 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

a  tea-table  with  a  samovar,  and,  last,  a  lady  in 
white  muslin  pouring  tea.  The  stern  reality  ap 
parently  consisted  in  scorching  alkali  plains,  with 
houses  of  the  packing  -  box  school  of  architecture 
at  a  distance  of  seventy  or  eighty  miles  apart.  No 
ladies  in  white  muslin  poured  tea;  they  garbed 
themselves  in  simple  gunny -sacking,  and  their  rep 
artee  had  an  acrid,  personal  note.  But  Mary  was 
glad  to  know  that  Archie  had  that  picture,  and  that 
he  thought  of  her  in  such  ideal  surroundings. 


X 

ON   HORSE-THIEF   TRAIL 

JUDITH,  on  her  black  mare,  Dolly,  left  the 
Dax  ranch  after  the  mid -day  meal  to  go  in 
quest  of  her  brother.  He  had  left  his  comfortable 
cabin  on  the  Bear  Creek,  when  he  had  turned  rustler, 
and  moved  into  the  "bad  man's  country,"  one  of 
those  remote  mountain  fastnesses  that  abound  in 
Wyoming  and  furnish  a  natural  protection  to  the 
fugitive  from  justice.  Judith  took  the  left  fork 
of  the  road  even  as  Peter  Hamilton  had  chosen  the 
right,  the  day  she  had  watched  him  gallop  towards 
Kitty  Colebrooke  with  never  a  glance  backward. 
Judith  strove"  now  to  put  him  and  the  memory  of 
that  day  from  her  mind  by  turning  towards  the 
open  country  without  a  glance  in  the  direction  he 
had  taken.  But  her  thoughts  were  weary  of  journey 
ing  over  that  trail  that  she  would  not  look  towards ; 
in  imagination  she  had  travelled  it  with  Peter  a 
hundred  times,  saw  each  dip  and  turn  of  the  yellow 
road,  each  feature  of  the  landscape  as  he  rode 
exultant  to  Kitty,  to  be  turned,  tried,  taken  or  left 
as  her  mood  should  prompt.  But  Judith  was  more 
woman  than  saint,  and  in  her  heart  there  was  a 
blending  of  joy  and  pain.  For  she  knew — such 
10  i4i 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

skill  has  love  in  inference  from  detail — that  the 
mysterious  far-away  girl,  who  was  so  powerful  that 
she  could  have  whatever  she  wanted,  even  to  Peter, 
loved  her  own  ambitions  better  than  she  did  Peter 
or  Peter's  happiness,  and  that  she  would  not  marry 
him  except  as  a  makeshift.  For  Miss  Colebrooke 
wrote  verses;  Peter  had  a  white-and-gold  volume  of 
them  that  Judith  fancied  he  said  his  prayers  to. 

As  for  Peter  himself,  he  had  never  been  able  to 
explain  the  magic  Kitty  had  brewed  for  him.  There 
was  a  heady  quality  in  the  very  ring  of  her  name. 
His  first  glimpse  of  her,  on  Class  Day,  in  a  white 
gown  and  a  hat  that  to  his  manly  indiscrimination 
looked  as  guileless  as  a  sheaf  of  poppies  nodding 
above  the  pale-yellow  hair  that  had  the  sheen  of 
corn-silk,  had  been  a  vision  that  stirred  in  him 
heroic  promptings.  He  had  no  difficulty  in  securing 
an  introduction.  She  was  a  connection  of  the 
Wetmores,  as  was  he,  though  through  opposite 
sides  of  the  house.  In  the  few  minutes'  talk  that 
followed,  he  had  the  disconcerting  sensation  of 
being  "talked  down  to."  There  was  the  indulgent 
tolerance  of  the  woman  of  the  world  to  the  "nice 
boy  "  about  this  amazing  young  woman,  who  might 
have  been  eighteen.  Hamilton  had  repudiated  the 
very  suggestion  of  being  a  "nice  boy."  But  he 
felt  himself  blushing,  groping  for  words,  saying 
stupid  things,  supplying  every  requisite  of  the 
"nice  boy"  as  if  he  were  acting  the  part.  Her 
chaperon  bore  her  away  presently,  and  he  was  left 
with  a  radiant  impression  of  corn-silk  hair  and  a 
complexion  that  justified  Bouguereau's  mother-of- 

142 


ON    HORSE-THIEF   TRAIL 

pearl  flesh  tints.  And  when  she  had  tilted  the 
ruffled  lace  parasol  over  her  shoulder,  so  that  it 
framed  her  head  like  a  fleecy  halo,  he  had  seen  that 
her  eyes  were  green  as  jade.  Withal  he  had  a  sense 
of  having  acquitted  himself  stupidly. 

Later,  when  he  ran  the  gamut  of  some  friends, 
they  had  chaffed  him  on  his  hardihood.  By  Jove! 
He  had  nerve  to  look  at  her!  Didn't  he  know  she 
was  "the"  Miss  Colebrooke?  Now  Hamilton  was 
absolutely  ignorant  of  Miss  Colebrooke 's  right  of 
way  to  the  definite  article,  but  it  was  characteristic 
of  him  to  make  no  inquiries.  On  the  whole,  he 
found  the  situation  meeting  with  a  greater  number 
of  the  artistic  requirements  than  such  situations 
usually  presented.  He  was  still  dallying  with  this 
pleasant  vagueness  of  sensation  when  he  picked  up 
a  copy  of  a  magazine,  and  the  name  Katherine 
Colebrooke  caught  his  eye  and  held  it  like  the 
flight  of  a  comet.  Her  contribution  was  a  sonnet 
entitled  "The  Miracle."  As  a  naive  emotional  con 
fession,  "The  Miracle"  interested  him;  as  a  sonnet, 
he  rent  it  unmercifully. 

Peter  was  to  learn,  however,  that  this  sonnet  was 
but  a  solitary  flake  in  a  poetic  fall  of  more  or  less 
magnitude.  He  rather  conspicuously  avoided  a 
reference  to  her  poetry  when  they  met  again.  To 
him  it  was  the  very  least  of  her  gifts.  Her  hair,  that 
had  the  tender  yellow  of  ripening  corn,  was  worthy 
a  cycle  of  sonnets,  but  pray  leave  the  making  of 
them  to  some  one  else!  By  daylight  the  jade- 
colored  eyes  seemed  to  shut  out  the  world.  The 
pupils  shrank  to  pin-points.  The  green 

143 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

deep— -as  many  fathoms  as  the  sea.  She  was  all 
Diana  by  daylight,  a  huntress,  if  you  will,  of  the 
elusive  epithet,  but  essentially  a  maiden  goddess, 
who  would  add  no  sprightly  romance  to  the  chron 
icles  of  Olympus.  By  lamp  -  light  she  suggested 
quite  another  divinity.  The  pin-points  expanded; 
they  burned  black,  like  coals  newly  breaking  into 
flame. 

When  Hamilton  knew  her  better,  he  did  not  like 
to  think  that  he  had  thought  her  eighteen  at  their 
first  meeting.  It  impugned  his  judgment  as  a  man 
of  the  world.  Young  ladies  of  eighteen  could  not 
possibly  be  contributors  of  several  years'  standing 
to  the  various  magazines.  Disconcerting  scraps  of 
gossip  floated  to  him.  He  heard  of  her  as  brides 
maid  at  a  famous  wedding  of  six  years  back,  when 
she  had  deflected  the  admiration  from  the  bride  and 
remained  the  central  figure  of  the  picture.  Her 
portrait  by  Sargent  had  been  the  sensation  of  the 
Salon  when  he  had  been  a  grubby-faced  boy  with 
his  nose  in  a  Latin  grammar.  An  unusual  situation 
was  abhorrent  to  him.  That  he  should  marry  an 
older  woman,  one,  moreover,  who  had  gained  her 
public  in  a  field  to  which  he  had  not  gained  ad 
mission,  was  doubly  distasteful  by  reason  of  his 
deference  to  the  conventional.  If  she  had  flirted 
with  him,  his  midsummer  madness  would  have 
evaporated  into  thin  air;  but  she  kept  him  at  arm's- 
length,  ostensibly  took  him  seriously,  and  the  boy 
proposed. 

Her  rejection  of  him  was  a  matter  of  such  con 
summate  skill  that  Hamilton  did  not  realize  the 

144 


ON    HORSE-THIEF    TRAIL 

keenness  of  his  disappointment  till  he  was  swinging 
westward  over  the  prairies.  She  had  confided  to 
him  that  her  work  claimed  her  and  that  she  must 
renounce  those  sweet  responsibilities  that  made  the 
happiness  of  other  women.  It  was  with  the  pro 
tective  mien  of  one  who  sought  to  shield  him  from 
an  adverse  destiny  that  she  declined  his  suit. 

This  had  all  happened  seven  years  ago.  In  the 
mean  time  he  had  adjusted  his  disappointment  to 
the  new  life  of  the  West.  To  say  that  he  had  fallen 
in  love  with  the  situation  would  be  to  misrepresent 
him.  But  the  role  of  lonely  cow-puncher  loyally 
wedded  to  the  thought  of  his  first  love  was  not  with 
out  charm  to  Peter.  How  long  his  constancy  would 
have  survived  the  test  of  propinquity  to  a  woman 
of  Judith  Rodney's  compelling  personality,  other 
things  being  equal,  it  would  be  difficult  to  hazard 
a  guess.  The  coming  of  Judith  from  the  convent 
increased  the  perspective  into  which  Kitty  was  re 
treating.  With  the  vivid  plainswoman  in  the 
foreground,  the  pale-haired  writer  of  verse  dwindled 
almost  to  reminiscence.  But  the  reverence  for  the 
usual,  that  made  up  the  underlying  motive  for  so 
much  of  Hamilton's  conduct,  presented  barriers 
alongside  of  which  his  previous  quandary  regarding 
Miss  Colebrooke's  seniority  shrank  to  insignificance. 
He  might  marry  a  woman  older  than  himself  and 
swallow  the  grimace  of  it,  but  by  no  conceivable 
system  of  argument  could  he  persuade  himself  to 
marry  into  a  family  like  that  of  the  Rodneys — 
the  girl  herself,  for  all  her  beauty  and  rare 
womanliness,  a  quarter  Indian,  her  father  the 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

synonyme  for  obloquy,  her  brother  a  cattle  thief. 
Hamilton  preferred  that  other  men-  should  make  the 
heroic  marriages  of  a  new  country.  He  was  pre 
pared  to  applaud  their  hardihood  of  temperament, 
but  in  his  own  case  such  a  thing  was  inconceivable. 
Similar  arguments  have  ensnared  multitudes  in  the 
web  of  caution  and  provided  a  rich  feast  for  the 
arch-spider,  convention,  the  shrivelled  flies  dangling 
in  the  web  conveying  no  significance,  apparently, 
beyond  that  of  advertising  the  system. 

When  Peter  went  East,  he  had  expected  to  find 
Kitty  worn  by  the  pursuit  of  epithets,  haunted  by 
the  phantom  of  a  career,  resigned  to  the  slings  and 
arrows  of  remorseful  spmsterhood.  An  obvious 
regret,  or,  at  least,  resignation  tempered  with  re 
membrance,  was  the  unguent  he  anticipated  at  the 
hands  of  Kitty.  But  alas  for  sanctuaries  built  to 
refuge  wounded  pride !  He  found  Kitty  the  pivot  of 
an  adoring  coterie,  the  magazines  flowing  with  the 
milk  and  honey  of  her  verse  and  she  looking  young 
er,  if  possible,  than  when  he  had  first  known  her. 
Time,  experience,  even  the  pangs  of  literary  par 
turition  had  not  writ  a  single  character  on  that 
alabaster  brow.  The  very  atrophy  of  the  forces 
of  time  which  she  had  accomplished  by  unknown 
necromancy  seemed  to  endow  her  with  an  elfin 
youth,  making  her  seem  smaller,  more  childlike, 
more  radiantly  elusive  than  when  she  had  worn  the 
poppy  hat  at  Cambridge. 

The  tan  and  hardship  of  the  prairie  had  adjusted 
the  blunder  of  their  ages.  Stark  conditions  had 
overdrawn  his  account  perhaps  a  decade;  she  re- 

146 


ON    HORSE-THIEF    TRAIL 

tained  a  surplus  it  would  be  rude  to  estimate.  Her 
greeting  of  him  was  radiant,  her  welcome  panoplied 
in  words  that  verged  close  to  inspiration.  A  woman 
would  have  scented  warning  instantly,  deep  feeling 
and  the  curled  and  perfumed  phrase  being  suspicious 
cronies  and  sure  to  rouse  those  lightly  slumbering 
watch -dogs,  the  feminine  wits.  But  Peter  only 
turned  the  other  cheek.  More  than  once,  in  the 
days  that  followed,  he  devoutly  thanked  his  patron 
saint,  caution,  that  his  relations  with  Judith  had  been 
governed  by  characteristic  prudence.  Kitty  ad 
mitted  him  to  her  coterie,  but  he  had  lost  nothing 
of  his  attitude  of  grand  Turk  towards  her  verses. 
The  sin  be  upon  the  heads  of  whomever  took  such 
things  seriously!  The  irony  of  fate  that  compelled 
a  class  poet  to  punch  cows  may  have  tinctured  his 
judgment. 

A  telegram  recalled  him  to  the  ranch  and  pre 
vented  a  final  leave-taking  with  Miss  Colebrooke. 
He  made  his  adieux  by  letter,  and  they  were  frankly 
regretful.  Miss  Colebrooke's  reply  mingled  sorrow 
in  parting  from  her  old  friend  with  joy  in  having 
found  him.  Her  letter,  a  masterpiece  of  phrase- 
spinning,  presented  to  Peter  the  one  significant  fact 
that  she  would  not  be  averse  to  the  renewal  of  his 
suit.  In  reading  her  letter  he  made  no  allowance 
for  the  fact  that  the  lady  had  made  a  fine  art  of 
saying  things,  and  that  her  joy  and  regret  at  their 
meeting  and  parting  might  have  been  reminiscent 
of  the  printed  passion  that  was  so  prominent  a 
feature  of  magazinedom.  Her  letters — the  like  of 
them  he  had  never  seen  outside  printed  volumes  qf 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

letters  that  had  achieved  the  distinction  of  classics — 
culminated  in  the  one  that  Judith  had  given  him  that 
morning,  announcing  that  unexpectedly  she  had 
decided  to  join  the  Wet  more  girls  and  would  be 
glad  to  see  him  at  the  ranch. 

That  he  had  flown  at  her  bidding,  Judith  knew. 
What  she  would  least  have  suspected  was  that 
Miss  Colebrooke  had  received  her  visitor  as  if  his 
breakneck  ride  across  the  desert  had  been  in  the 
nature  of  an  afternoon  call.  If  Judith,  knowing 
what  she  did  of  this  long-drawn-out  romance,  could 
have  known  likewise  of  her  knight's  chagrin,  would 
she  have  pitied  him? 

Ignorant  of  the  recent  anticlimax,  and  with  a 
burden  of  many  heavy  thoughts,  Judith  was  pene 
trating  a  world  of  unleavened  desolation.  Beneath 
the  scourge  of  the  noon -day  sun  the  desert  lay, 
stripped  of  every  illusion.  Vegetation  had  almost 
ceased,  nothing  but  sun-scorched,  dust-choked  sage 
brush  could  spring  from  such  sterility.  The  fruit 
of  desolation,  it  gave  back  to  desolation  a  quality 
more  melancholy  than  utter  barrenness.  Glittering 
in  the  sunlight,  the  beds  of  alkali  gleamed  leper 
white;  above  them  the  agitated  air  was  like  the  hot 
waves  that  dance  and  quiver  about  iron  at  white 
heat.  From  horizon  to  horizon  the  curse  of  God 
seemed  to  have  fallen  on  the  land;  it  was  as  if, 
cursing  it,  He  had  forgotten  it,  and  left  it  as  the 
abomination  of  desolation.  Judith  scarce  heeded, 
her  thoughts  straying  after  first  one  then  another 
of  the  group  that  made  up  her  little  world — Peter 
Hamilton,  Kitty  Colebrooke,  Jim,  his  family — 


ON    HORSE-THIEF    TRAIL 

thoughts  inconsequent  as  the  dancing  dust-devils 
that  whirled  over  that  infinity  of  space,  and,  whirl 
ing,  disappeared  and  reappeared  at  some  new  corner 
of  the  compass. 

The  trail  that  she  must  take  to  Jim's  camp  in  the 
mountain  was  known  to  but  few  honest  men.  Fugi 
tives  from  justice — the  grave,  impersonal  justice 
of  the  law,  or  the  swift  justice  of  the  plains — found 
there  an  asylum.  And  while  they  sometimes  suf 
fered,  in  death  by  thirst  or  hunger,  a  sentence  more 
dreadful  than  the  law  of  the  land  or  the  law  of  the 
rope  would  have  given  them,  the  desert,  like  the  sea, 
seldom  gave  up  her  own.  It  was  more  than  prob 
able  that  no  woman  except  Alida  Rodney  had  ever 
taken  that  trail  before,  and  reasonably  certain  that 
no  woman  had  ever  taken  it  alone.  Dolly,  when  she 
saw  the  beds  of  alkali  grow  more  frequent,  and  that 
the  trails  of  the  range  cattle  turned  back,  sniffed  the 
lack  of  water  in  the  air,  slackened  her  pace,  and  turn 
ed  an  interrogatory  ear  towards  her  mistress. 

"It's  all  right,  old  girl";  the  gauntleted  hand 
patted  the  satin  neck.  "We're  in  for"  —  Judith 
flung  her  head  up  and  confronted  the  infinite 
desolation  yawning  to  the  sky-line — "God  knows 
what." 

Dolly  broke  into  a  light  canter ;  this  evidently  was 
not  an  occasion  for  dawdling.  There  was  a  touch 
of  business  about  the  way  the  reins  were  held  that 
made  the  mare  settle  down  to  work.  But  her  flying 
hoofs  made  little  apparent  progress  against  the 
space  and  silence  of  the  desert.  Five,  ten,  fifteen 
miles  and  the  curving  shoulder  of  the  mountain, 

149 


JUDITH    OP   THE    PLAINS 

that  she  must  cross,  still  mocked  in  the  distance. 
Only  the  sun  moved  in  that  vast  world  of  seemingly 
immutable  forces. 

There  was  no  stoic  Sioux  in  Judith  now.  The 
girl  that  breasted  the  crests  of  the  foot-hills  shrank 
in  terror  from  the  loneliness  and  the  suggestion  of 
foes  lurking  in  ambush.  The  sun  dropped  behind 
the  mountain,  leaving  a  blood-red  pool  in  his  wake, 
like  fugitive  Cain.  Already  night  was  sweeping 
over  the  earth  from  mountain  shadows  that  flowed 
imperceptibly  together  like  blackened  pools.  To 
the  girl  following  the  trail  the  silence  was  more 
dreadful  than  a  chorus  of  threatening  voices.  She 
listened  till  the  stillness  beat  at  her  ears  like  the 
stamping  of  ten  thousand  hoofs,  then  pulled  up  her 
horse,  and  the  desert  was  as  still  as  the  chamber 
of  death. 

"Ah,  Dolly,  my  dear,  a  house  is  the  place  for 
women  folk  when  the  night  comes — a  house,  the  fire 
burning  clear,  the  kettle  singing,  and — "  Dolly 
whinnied  an  affirmative  without  waiting  for  the 
picture  to  be  completed.  The  wilderness  was  being 
gradually  swallowed  by  the  shadows,  as  deliberately 
as  a  snake  swallows  its  victim.  They  were  nearing 
the  mountains.  The  hot  blasts  of  air  from  the 
desert  blew  more  and  more  intermittently.  The 
breeze  swept  keen  from  the  hills,  towering  higher 
and  higher,  and  Judith  breathed  deep  of  the  piny 
fragrance  and  felt  the  tension  of  things  loosen  a 
little. 

Whitening  cattle  bones  gleamed  from  the  darkness, 
tragic  reminders  of  hard  winters  and  scant  pasturage, 


ON    HORSE-THIEF    TRAIL 

and  Judith,  with  the  Indian  superstition  that  was 
in  the  marrow  of  her  bones,  read  ghostly  warnings 
in  the  empty  eye-sockets  of  the  grinning  skulls 
that  stared  up  at  her.  She  dared  not  think  of 
the  dangers  that  the  looming  darkness  might  con 
ceal,  or  of  what  she  might  find  at  her  journey's 
end,  or —  "Whoa,  Dolly!  softly,  girl.  Is  it  my 
foolish,  white-blood  nerves,  or  is  some  one  follow 
ing?" 

The  mare  had  been  trained  to  respond  to  the 
slightest  touch  on  her  mouth,  and  stopped  instant 
ly.  Judith  swayed  slightly  in  the  saddle  with  the 
heaving  of  the  sweating  horse.  The  blood  beat  at 
her  temples,  confusing  what  she  acttially  heard  with 
what  her  imagination  pictured.  She  was  half-way 
up  a  towering  spur  of  the  Wind  River  when  she  slid 
from  the  saddle,  and  putting  her  ear  to  the  ground 
listened,  Indian  fashion.  Above  the  throbbing  still 
ness  of  the  desert  night,  that  came  to  her  murmur- 
ously,  like  the  imprisoned  roar  of  the  sea  from  a 
shell,  she  could  hear  the  regular  beat  of  horse's  hoofs 
following  up  the  steep  mountain  grade.  She 
scrambled  up  with  the  desperate  nimbleness  of  a 
hunted  thing,  but  when  she  attempted  to  vault  to 
the  saddle  her  limbs  failed  and  she  sank  clinging  to 
the  pommel.  Twice  she  tried  and  twice  the  trem 
bling  of  her  limbs  held  her  captive.  With  the  loss 
of  each  moment  the  beat  of  the  hoofs  on  the  trail 
below  became  more  distinct.  The  very  desperation 
of  her  plight  kept  her  clinging  to  the  pommel,  in 
capable  of  thought,  so  that  when  she  finally  flung 
herself  to  the  saddle  she  was  surprised  to  find  her-' 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

self  there.  To  the  left  the  trail  dropped  sharply 
to  a  precipice,  choked  by  the  close  crowding  of 
many  scrub  pines.  To  the  right  the  snow -clad 
spires  of  the  Wind  River  kept  their  eternal  vigil. 
If  she  should  call  aloud  for  help,  these  white, 
still  mountains  would  echo  the  anguish  of  her 
woman's  cry  and  give  no  further  heed  to  her 
plight. 

The  trail  had  begun  to  widen.  The  horse  behind 
her  again  stumbled,  loosening  a  stone  that  rolled 
with  crashes  and  echoings  down  to  the  precipice 
below.  She  took  advantage  of  the  widening  of  the 
trail  to  urge  Dolly  forward.  Her  impulse  was  to 
put  spurs  to  the  mare  and  run,  to  take  chances  with 
loose  stones,  a  narrowing  trail,  and  the  possibility 
of  Dolly's  stumbling  and  breaking  a  leg;  but  dis 
cretion  prompted  the  showing  of  a  brave  front,  the 
pleasantries  of  the  road,  with  flight  as  the  last 
resource  of  desperation. 

Suddenly  gaining  what  seemed  to  be  a  plateau, 
she  wheeled  and  waited  the  coming  of  this  possible 
friend  or  foe.  The  thudding  of  hoofs  through  the 
inferno  of  darkness  stopped,  as  the  rider  below  con 
sidered  the  latest  move  of  the  horseman  above. 
They  were  so  near  that  Judith  could  hear  the 
labored  breathing  of  the  sweating  horse.  The  black 
ness  of  the  night  had  become  a  tangible  thing.  The 
towering  mountains  were  one  piece  with  the  gaping 
precipice,  the  trail,  the  scrub  pines,  the  gauntlet 
on  her  hand.  The  horse  below  resumed  its  stum 
bling  gait.  Judith  crowded  Dolly  close  to  the  rocky 
wall.  If  the  chance  comrade  of  the  wilderness 


ON    HORSE-THIEF    TRAIL 

should  pass  her  by  in  the  darkness — God  speed 
him! 

"What  the  devil  are  you  blocking  the  trail  for?" 
sung  out  a  voice  from  the  darkness.  At  sound  of  it 
Judith's  heart  stopped  beating.  The  voice  was 
Peter  Hamilton's. 


XI 

THE   CABIN   IN   THE   VALLEY 

ATO  Judith,  taken  unawares  by  the  unexpected 
turn  of  things,  comforted  as  a  lost  child  that  is 
found,  told  all  her  feeling  for  him  in  the  way  she 
called  his  name.  The  easy  tenderness  of  the  man 
a.woke ;  his  senses  swayed  to  the  magic  of  her  voice, 
the  mystery  of  the  night,  the  shadow  world  in  which 
they  two,  'twixt  earth  and  sky,  were  alone.  They 
rode  without  speaking.  Peter's  hand  sought  hers, 
and  all  her  woman's  terror  of  the  desolation,  her 
fear  of  the  vague  terrors  of  the  dreadful  night, 
spoke  in  her  answering  pressure.  It  was  as  if  the 
desert  had  given  them  to  each  other  as  they  groped 
through  the  silent  darkness.  In  the  great  company 
of  earth,  sky,  silence,  and  this  great-hearted  woman, 
Peter  grew  conscious  of  a  real  thrill.  There  were 
depths  to  life — vast,  still  depths;  this  woman's  un 
selfish  love  for  him  made  him  realize  them.  He 
felt  his  soul  sweeping  out  on  the  great  tide  of  things. 
Farther  and  farther  it  swept;  his  patron  saint, 
caution,  beckoning  frantically  from  the  receding 
shore,  was  miles  behind.  "Judith!"  he  said,  and  he 
scarce  recognized  his  own  voice.  '"Judith!"  he 
struggled  as  a  swimmer  in  a  drowning  clutch, 

J54 


THE    CABIN    IN    THE    VALLEY 

Then  his  patron  saint  threw  him  a  life-line  and  he 
saved  the  situation. 

''Judith!"  he  said,  a  third  time,  and  now  he  knew 
his  voice.  It  was  the  voice  of  the  man  who  tilted 
at  life  picturesquely  in  a  broad-brimmed  hat,  who 
loved  his  darling  griefs  and  fitted  them  as  a  Rem 
brandt  fits  its  background.  And  still,  in  the  same 
voice,  the  voice  he  knew,  he  said:  "I  feel' as  if  we 
had  died  and  our  souls  were  meeting.  You  know 
Aldrich's  exquisite  lines: 

"Somewhere  in  desolate,  wind-swept  space, 

In  twilight  land — no  man's  land — 
Two  hurrying  shapes  met  face  to  face 
And  bade  each  other  stand. 

"'And  who  are  you?'  cried  one,  agape, 

Shuddering  in  the  gloaming  light. 
I  know  not,'  said  the  other  shape, 
'I  only  died  last  night.1" 

"  'I  only  died  last  night!'  "  she  repeated  the  line, 
slowly,  significantly.  In  her  questioning  she  for 
got  the  night,  the  desolation,  the  presence  of  the 
man.  Had  she  died  last  night?  Had  youth,  the 
joy  of  living,  her  infinite  capacity  for  love,  had  they 
died  when  Peter,  with  the  ugly  haste  of  the  man  with 
out  a  nice  sense  of  the  time  that  should  elapse  be 
tween  the  old  and  the  new  love,  had  spurred  away 
cheerfully  at  the  beck  of  another  woman?  And 
now  the  desert,  this  earth-mother  as  she  called  it, 
in  the  Indian  way,  had  given  him  back  to  her, 
thrown  them  together  as  driftwood  in  the  still 
ocean  of  space.  She  drew  a  long  breath,  the  breath 

J5S 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

of  one  waking  from  an  anguished  dream.  A  wild, 
unreasoning  gladness  woke  in  her  heart,  the  joy  of 
living  swept  her  back  again  to  life.  She  had  not 
died  last  night,  she  was  riding  through  the  wilderness 
with  Peter. 

"Look!"  she  whispered.  The  sky  had  lost  its 
forbidding  blackness.  The  sharp  notches  of  the 
mountains,  faintly  outlined  in  white,  undulated 
through  an  eternity  of  space.  Venus  hung  in  the 
west,  burning  softly  as  a  shaded  lamp.  The  trail 
they  climbed  seemed  to  end  in  her  pale  yellow  light. 

Peter  had  saved  the  situation,  but  the  wild  beauty 
of  the  night  stirred  in  him  that  gift  of  silvery  speech 
that  was  ever  his  tribute  to  the  sex,  rather  than 
the  woman.  He  bent  towards  Judith.  A  loosened 
strand  of  her  hair  blew  across  his  cheek.  The 
breakneck  ride  to  Kitty  was  already  the  madness 
of  a  dead  and  gone  incarnation.  He  pointed  to  the 
pale  star,  and  told  her  it  was  the  omen  of  their 
destiny;  the  formless  blackness  through  which  they 
had  groped  was  the  way  of  life,  but  for  such  as  were 
not  condemned  to  eternal  darkness  Venus  held 
high  her  lamp  and  they  scaled  the  heights. 

And  Judith,  listening,  found  her  heart  a  battle 
field  of  love  and  hate.  "Were  women  dogs,  that 
men  should  play  with  them  in  idle  moods,  caress 
them,  and  fling  them  out  for  other  toys?"  she  de 
manded  of  herself,  even  while  the  tones  of  his  voice 
melted  her  innermost  being  to  thankfulness  for  this 
hour  that  he  was  wholly  hers. 

Gayly,  with  ready  turns  of  speech  and  snatches 
of  song,  trolled  in  his  musical  barytone,  Peter  rode 

156 


THE    CABIN    IN    THE    VALLEY 

through  the  night,  even  as  he  rode  through  life,  a 
Sir  Knight  of  the  Joyous  Heart,  unb rushed  by  the 
wing  of  sorrow,  loving  his  pale  griefs  for  the  values 
they  gave  the  picture.  And  Judith  understood  by 
reason  of  that  exquisite  perception  that  was  hers  in 
all  matters  pertaining  to  him,  and,  knowing,  only 
loved  the  more. 

Down  the  valley  came  the  sharp  yelp  of  a  coyote, 
and  in  a  moment  the  towering  crags  had  taken  it  up, 
the  echo  repeating  it  and  giving  it  back  to  the  valley, 
where  the  coyote  barked  again  at  the  shadow  of 
his  voice.  The  night  was  full  of  the  eerie  laughter. 
Peter  put  a  restraining  hand  on  Dolly's  bridle,  and, 
waiting  for  the  coyote  to  stop,  called  Judith's  name, 
and  all  the  mountains  made  music  of  it.  The  echo 
sang  the  old  Hebrew  name  as  if  it  had  been  a  psalm. 
Peter's  voice  gave  it  to  the  mountains  joyously,  but 
the  mountains  gave  it  back  in  the  minor.  And 
Judith  was  reminded  of  the  soft,  singing  syllables 
that  her  mother,  in  the  Indian  way,  had  made  of 
her  daughter's  Indian  name.  The  remembrance 
tugged  at  her  heart.  In  her  joy  at  seeing  Peter 
she  had  forgotten  that  the  errand  that  had  brought 
her  was  an  errand  of  life  and  death — life  and  death 
for  her  brother! 

But  Peter's  ready  enthusiasms  pressed  him  hard. 
Surely  love-making  was  the  business  of  such  a  night. 
"Ah,  Judith,  goddess  of  the  heights,  if  I  could  sing 
your  name  like  the  mountains,  would  you  love  me  a 
little?" 

For  his  pains  he  had  a  flash  of  white  teeth  in  a 
smile  that  recalled  his  first  acquaintance  with  Kitty, 
11  157 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

the  sort  of  smile  one  would  give  to  a  "nice  boy'' 
when  his  manoeuvres  were  a  trifle  obvious.  "Not 
if  you  sang  my  name  as  the  chorus  of  all  the  Hima 
layas  and  the  Rockies  and  Andes,  and  with  the  fire 
of  all  their  volcanoes  and  the  beauty  of  their  snows 
and  the  strength  of  all  their  hills,  for  it's  not  my  way 
to  love  a  little!" 

He  bent  towards  her;  to  brush  her  cheek  lightly 
as  they  rode  was  but  to  imply  his  appreciation  of 
the  scene  as  a  bit  of  chiaroscuro,  the  panorama  of 
the  desert  night,  eternal  romance  typified  by  the 
man  and  woman  scaling  the  heights,  the  goddess  of 
love  lighting  them  on  their  way  by  her  flaming 
torch.  But  Judith,  who  said  little  because  she  felt 
much,  was  in  no  mood  to  brook  such  dalliance,  and, 
urging  the  mare  sharply,  she  cantered  down  the 
divide  at  peril  of  life  and  limb.  Peter,  cursing 
the  heavy  -  footed  beast  he  rode,  came  stumbling 
after. 

Judith  rode  wildly  through  the  night,  leaving 
Peter  laps  behind,  to  beseech,  to  prophesy  dire 
happening  if  she  should  slip,  and  to  scramble  after, 
as  best  he  might,  on  the  heavy-footed  beast  he 
repudiated,  with  all  his  ancestors,  as  oxen,  to  the 
fourth  generation.  But  the  woman  kept  her  pace. 
She  had  stern  questions  to  put  to  herself,  and  they 
were  likely  to  have  truer  answers  if  Peter  were 
elsewhere  than  riding  beside  her.  Whither  was  he 
going?  They  had  met  casually  on  a  trail  known 
to  few  honest  men.  It  led  over  a  spur  of  the  Wind 
River  to  a  sort  of  no  man's  land,  the  hiding-place 
of  horse  and  cattle  thieves.  She  had  gone  to  warn 

158 


THE    CABIN    IN    THE    VALLEY 

her  brother.    Could  he  be  going  there —    She  could 
not  bring  herself  to  finish. 

Her  heart  was  divided  against  itself.  Within  it 
were  fought  again  the  red  and  the  white  man's 
battles,  bitterly,  and  to  the  finish.  And  now  the 
white  man,  with  his  open  warfare,  won,  and  all 
her  love  rose  up  and  scourged  her  little  faith.  She 
would  wait  on  the  trail  for  Peter,  penitent  and 
ashamed.  And  while  she  waited  suspicions  bred 
of  her  Indian  blood  stirred  distrustfully,  and  she 
told  herself  that  her  mother's  daughter  made  a 
worthy  champion  of  the  ways  of  white  men.  Did 
Hamilton  hunt  her  brother  gallowsward,  making 
merry  with  her  the  meantime?  He  had  not  even 
been  courteously  concerned  as  to  where  she  was 
going  when  they  met  on  the  divide.  They  had  met 
and  ridden  cogether  as  casually  as  if  it  had  been 
the  most  natural  thing  for  them  both  to  be  taking 
the  horse-thief  trail  as  a  summer  evening's  ride. 
And  she  had  not  thought  to  wonder  at  his  possible 
destination,  when  the  man  from  whom  she  rode  in 
terror  through  the  night  proved  to  be  Peter,  because 
the  lesser  question  of  his  errand  had  been  swallowed 
up  in  the  greater  miracle  of  his  presence. 

She  was  by  this  time  well  down  the  divide.  The 
temperature  had  risen  perceptibly  on  the  down 
grade.  The  heat  of  the  plains  had  already  mingled 
with  the  cool  hill  air;  the  heights,  where  Venus 
kept  her  love  vigil,  were  already  past.  Judith  gave 
Dolly  a  breathing  spell,  herself  lounging  easily  mean 
while.  She  knew  how  to  take  her  ease  in  the  saddle 
as  well  as  any  cow-puncher  on  the  range. 

159 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

"The  Hayoka  has  dominion  over  me,"  she  mused, 
with  Indian  fatalism.  "As  well  resign  myself  to 
sorrow  with  dignity.  Hayoka,  Hayo  —  ka!"  and 
she  began  to  croon  softly  a  hymn  of  propitiation 
to  the  Hayoka,  the  Sioux  god  of  contrariety.  Ac 
cording  to  the  legends,  he  sat  naked  and  fanned  him 
self  in  a  Dakota  blizzard  and  huddled,  shivering, 
over  a  fire  in  the  heat  of  summer.  Likewise  the 
Hayoka  cried  for  joy  and  laughed  for  sorrow. 

She  remembered  how  the  nuns  at  Santa  F£  had 
been  shocked  at  her  for  praying  to  Indian  gods,  and 
how  once  she  had  built  a  little  mound  of  stones, 
which  was  the  Sioux  way  of  making  petition,  in  the 
shadow  of  the  statue  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  and  how 
Sister  Angela  had  scattered  the  stones  and  told  her 
to  pray  instead  to  the  Blessed  Lady.  She  still 
prayed  to  the  Blessed  Lady  every  day;  but  some 
times,  too,  she  reared  little  mounds  of  stones  in  the 
desert  when  she  was  very  sad  and  the  kinship  be 
tween  her  and  the  dead  gods  of  her  mother's  people 
seemed  the  closer  for  their  common  sorrow. 

Peter,  coming  up  with  a  much-blown  horse,  found 
her  still  chanting  the  Indian  song. 

"  Sing  him  a  verse  for  me,  Judith.  Heaven  knows 
I  need  something  to  straighten  out  my  infernal  luck. 
Tell  the  Hayoka  that  I'm  a  good  fellow  and  need 
only  half  a  chance.  Tell  him  to  prosper  my  present 
venture." 

She  had  begun  to  chant  the  invocation,  then 
stopped  suddenly.  "  I  must  not;  you  know  I  am  a 
Catholic."  Suspicion  that  had  been  scotched,  not 
killed,  raised  its  head.  "What  was  his  present 

160 


THE    CABIN    IN   THE   VALLEY 

venture?"  Her  eye  had  not  changed  in  expression, 
nor  a  tone  of  her  voice,  but  in  her  heart  was  a  sicken 
ing  distrust  for  all  things. 

A  belated  moon  had  come  up.  The  level  plain, 
on  which  their  horses  threw  grotesque,  elongated 
shadows,  was  flooded  with  honey-colored  light.  Each 
straggling  clump  of  sage-brush,  whitening  bone  and 
bowlder,  gleamed  mysterious,  ghostly  in  the  radiant 
flood -tide.  They  seemed  to  be  riding  through  a 
world  that  had  no  kinship  with  that  black,  formless 
void  through  which  they  had  groped  but  yet  a  little 
while.  Then  darkness  had  been  upon  the  face  of  the 
deep.  Now  there  was  a  miracle  of  light  such  as 
only  the  desert,  in  its  desolation,  knows.  To  Judith, 
with  a  soul  attuned  to  every  passing  expression  of 
nature,  there  was  significance  in  this  transition  from 
darkness  to  light.  The  sudden  radiance  was  em 
blematic  of  her  belated  perception,  coming  as  it 
did  after  a  blindness  so  dense  as  to  appear  almost 
wilful.  Her  mind  was  busy  with  a  multitude  of 
schemes.  Fool  though  she  had  been,  she  would 
not  be  the  instrument  of  her  brother's  undoing. 

"  I've  come  too  far,"  she  cried,  in  sudden  dismay. 
"I  should  have  stopped  at  the  foot  of  the  divide. 
I've  never  been  over  the  trail  before." 

"You  foolish  child,  why  should  you  stop  in  the 
middle  of  the  wilderness?" 

She  wheeled  the  mare  about  and  faced  him,  a 
figure  of  graven  resolution. 

"I  promised  to  meet  Tom  Lorimer  there — now 
you  know." 

With  which  she  cracked  Dolly  sharply  with  her 
161 


JUDITH    OP   THE    PLAINS 

heel  and  began  to  retrace  her  way  over  the  trail. 
Peter  turned  his  horse  and  followed,  with  the  feeling 
of  utter  helplessness  that  a  man  has  when  con 
fronted  with  the  granite  obstinacy  of  women.  Judith 
had  meanwhile  expected  that  the  announcement  of 
her  mythical  appointment  with  Tom  Lorimer  would 
be  received  differently.  Tom  Lorimer's  reputation 
was  of  the  worst.  An  Eastern  man  formerly,  an 
absconder  from  justice,  rumor  was  busy  with  tales 
of  ungodly  merrymaking  that  went  on  at  his  ranch, 
where  no  woman  went  except  painted  wisps  from 
the  dance-halls.  But  Peter  was  too  loyal  a  friend, 
despite  his  shortcomings  as  a  lover,  to  see  in  Judith's 
statement  anything  more  than  a  sisterly  devotion 
so  deeply  unselfish  that  it  failed  to  take  into  account 
the  danger  to  which  she  subjected  herself. 

However,  it  was  plainly  his  duty  to  prevent  an 
unprotected  rendezvous  with  Lorimer,  to  reason,  to 
plead,  and,  if  he  should  fail  to  bring  her  to  a  reason 
able  frame  of  mind,  to  go  with  her,  come  what  would 
of  the  result.  There  were  reasons  innumerable 
why  he,  a  cattle-man,  should  avoid  the  appearance 
of  dealing  with  the  sheep  faction,  he  reflected, 
grimly.  Lorimer  owned  sheep,  many  thousand  head. 
His  herds  had  been  allowed  to  graze  unmolested, 
while  smaller  owners,  like  Jim  Rodney,  had  been 
crowded  out  because  his  influence,  politically,  was  a 
thing  to  be  reckoned  with.  So  Peter  followed 
Judith,  pleading  Judith's  cause;  she  did  not  un 
derstand,  he  told  her,  what  she  was  doing;  and  while 
perhaps  there  was  not  another  man  in  the  country 
who  would  not  honor  her  unselfishness  in  coming  to 

162 


THE    CABIN    IN   THE    VALLEY 

him,  Lorimer's  chivalry  was  not  a  thing  to  be  reckon 
ed  with,  drunken  beast  that  he  was.  And  Judith, 
worn  with  the  struggle,  tried  beyond  measure, 
made  reckless  by  the  daily  infusion  of  ill-fortune, 
pulled  up  the  mare  and  laughed  unpleasantly. 

"You  think  I'm  going  to  see  Lorimer  about  Jim? 
I'm  going  with  him  to  a  merrymaking.  We're  old 
pals,  Lorimer  and  I." 

"Judith,  dear,  has  it  come  to  this,  that  you  not 
only  distrust  an  old  friend,  but  that  you  try  to 
degrade  yourself  to  hide  from  him  the  fact  that  you 
are  going  to  your  brother's?  You've  never  spoken 
to  Lorimer.  I  heard  him  say,  not  a  week  ago,  that 
he  had  never  succeeded  in  making  you  recognize 
him.  You  deceived  me  at  first  when  you  spoke  of 
meeting  him — I  thought  you  had  a  message  from 
Jim — but  this  talk  of  merrymaking  is  beneath  you." 
He  shrugged  his  shoulders  in  disgust.  He  felt  the 
torrent  of  grief  that  rent  her.  No  sob  escaped  her 
lips ;  there  was  no  convulsive  movement  of  shoulder. 
She  rode  beside  him,  still  as  the  desert  before  the 
sand-storm  breaks,  her  soul  seared  with  white-hot 
iron  that  knows  no  saving  grace  of  sob  or  tear.  She 
rode  as  Boadicea  might  have  ridden  to  battle;  there 
was  not  a  yielding  line  in  her  body.  But  over  and 
over  in  her  woman's  heart  there  rang  the  cry:  "I 
am  so  tired!  If  the  long  night  would  but  come!" 

Peter  drew  out  his  watch.  "It's  a  quarter  to 
eleven.  We'll  have  a  hard  bit  of  riding  to  reach 
Blind  Creek  before  midnight." 

Then  he  knew  as  well  as  she,  perhaps  better,  the 
route  to  Jim's  hiding-place;  she  had  never  been 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

there  as  yet.  And  if  Peter  knew,  doubtless  every 
cattle-man  in  the  country  knew.  What  a  fool  she 
had  been  with  her  talk  of  meeting  Tom  Lorimer! 
A  sense  of  utter  defeat  seemed  to  paralyze  her 
energies.  She  felt  like  a  trapped  thing  that  after 
eluding  its  pursuers  again  and  again  finds  that  it 
has  been  but  running  about  a  corral.  Physical 
weariness  was  telling  on  her.  She  had  been  in  the 
saddle  since  a  little  past  noon  and  it  was  now  not  far 
from  midnight.  And  still  there  was  the  unanswered 
question  of  Peter's  errand.  It  was  long  since  either 
had  broken  the  silence.  A  delicious  coolness  had 
crept  into  the  air  with  the  approach  of  midnight. 
Judith,  breathing  deep  draughts  of  it,  reminded 
herself  of  the  stoicism  that  was  hers  by  birthright. 

"Peter  " — her  voice  lost  some  of  its  old  ring,  but 
it  had  a  deeper  note  —  "Peter,  we  make  strange 
comrades,  you  and  I,  in  a  stranger  world.  We 
meet  on  Horse-Thief  Trail,  and  there  is  reason  to 
suppose  that  our  errands  are  inimical.  You've 
pierced  all  my  little  pretences ;  you  know  that  I  am 
going  to  my  brother,  who  is  an  outlaw — my  brother, 
the  rope  for  whose  hanging  is  already  cut.  And 
yet  we  have  been  friends  these  many  years,  and  we 
meet  in  this  world  of  desolation  and  weigh  each 
other's  words,  and  there  is  no  trust  in  our  hearts. 
Our  little  faith  is  more  pitiful  than  the  cruel  errands 
that  bring  us.  I  take  it  you,  too,  are  going  to  my 
brother's?" 

"I'm  going  there  to  see  that  you  arrive  safe  and 
sound,  but  I  had  no  intention  of  going  when  I  left 
camp.  You've  brought  me  a  good  twenty  miles  out 


THE    CABIN    IN    THE    VALLEY 

of  my  way,  not  to  mention  accusing  me  of  ulterioi 
motives.  Now,  aren't  you  penitent?"  He  smiled 
at  her,  boyish  and  irresistible.  To  Judith  it  was 
more  reassuring  than  an  oath.  "It's  like  dogs 
fighting  over  a  picked  bone;  the  meat's  all  gone. 
The  range  is  overworked;  it  needs  a  good,  long 
rest."  He  turned  towards  Judith,  speaking  slow 
ly.  "What  you  have  said  is  true.  We're  friends 
before  we're  partisans  of  either  faction.  I'm  on 
my  way  to  a  round-up.  There's  been  an  unex 
pected  order  to  fill  a  beef  contract — a  thousand 
steers.  We're  going  to  furnish  five  hundred,  the 
XXX  two  hundred  and  fifty,  and  the  "Circle-Star" 
two  hundred  and  fifty.  Men  have  been  scouring 
the  enemy's  country  for  days  rounding  up  stragglers. 
It  will  go  hard  with  the  rustlers  after  this  round-up, 
Judith." 

She  felt  a  great  wave  of  penitence  and  shame 
sweep  over  her.  She  had  not  trusted  him;  in  her 
heart  she  had  nourished  hideous  suspicions  of  him, 
and  he  was  telling  her,  quite  simply,  of  the  plans  of 
his  own  faction,  trusting  her,  as,  indeed,  he  might, 
but  as  she  never  expected  to  be  trusted. 

"Peter,  do  you  know  that  sometimes  I  think 
Jim  has  gone  quite  mad  with  these  range  troubles. 
He's  acted  strangely  ever  since  his  sheep  were  driven 
over  the  cliff.  He's  not  been  home  to  Alida  and  the 
children  since  he  has  been  out  of  jail,  and  you 
know  how  devoted  to  them  he  has  always  been! 
He  spends  all  his  time  tracking  Simpson.  Alida 
wrote  me  that  she  expects  him  to-night,  and  I'm 
going  there  on  the  chance." 

165 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

"It's  the  devil's  own  hole  for  desolation  that  he's 
come  to."  Peter  looked  about  the  cup  -  shaped 
valley  that  was  but  a  cul-de-sac  in  the  mountains. 
Its  approach  was  between  the  high  rock  walls  of  a 
canon.  Passing  between  them,  the  rise  of  tempera 
ture  was  almost  incredible.  The  great  barrier  of 
mountain  -  range,  that  cut  it  off  from  the  rest  of 
the  world,  seemed  also  to  cut  it  off  from  light  and 
air.  The  atmosphere  hung  lifeless,  the  occasional 
bellow  of  range-cattle  sounded  far-off  and  muffled. 
Vegetation  was  scant,  the  sage-brush  grew  close  and 
scrubby,  even  the  brilliant  cactus  flowers  seemed 
to  have  abandoned  the  valley  to  its  fate.  A  lone 
group  of  dead  cotton-woods  grew  like  sentinels  close 
to  the  rocky  walls.  Their  twisted  branches,  gaunt 
and  bare,  writhed  upward  as  if  in  dumb  supplica 
tion.  There  was  about  them  a  something  that  made 
Judith  come  closer  to  Peter  as  they  passed  them 
by.  The  night  wind  sang  in  their  leafless  branches 
with  a  long-drawn,  shuddering  sigh.  The  despair  of 
a  barren,  deserted  thing  seemed  to  have  settled  on 
them. 

"Those  frightful  trees,  how  can  Alida  stand 
them?"  She  looked  back.  "Oh,  I  wish  they  were 
cut  down!" 

Before  them  was  the  cabin,  its  ruined  condition 
pitifully  apparent  even  by  night.  It  had  been 
deserted  ten  years  before  Jim  brought  his  family 
to  it.  Rumor  said  it  was  haunted.  Grim  stories 
were  told  of  the  death  of  a  woman  who  had  come 
there  with  a  man,  and  had  not  lived  to  go  away 
with  him.  The  roof  of  the  adjoining  stable  had 


THE    CABIN    IN   THE   VALLEY 

fallen  in,  the  bars  of  the  corral  were  missing.  The 
house  was  dark  but  for  a  feeble  light  that  glimmered 
in  one  window,  the  beacon  that  had  been  lighted, 
night  after  night,  against  Jim's  coming.  It  added 
a  further  note  of  apprehension,  peering  through  the 
dark,  still  valley  like  a  wakeful,  anxious  eye,  keep 
ing  a  long  and  unrewarded  vigil.  Judith  felt  the 
consummation  of  the  threatening  tragedy  after  her 
first  glimpse  of  the  sentinel  trees.  She  could  not 
explain,  but  her  heart  cried,  even  as  the  wind  in 
them  had  sung  of  death.  Perhaps  her  mother's 
spirit  spoke  to  her,  just  as  she  had  said,  on  that 
memorable  drive,  that  the  Great  Mystery  spoke  to 
his  people  in  the  earth,  the  sky,  and  the  frowning 
mountains. 

"Peter" — she  had  slid  from  her  horse  and  was 
clinging  to  his  arm — "when  it  happens,  Peter,  you 
will  have  no  part  in  it?" 

"It  won't  happen,  Judith,  if  I  can  help  it." 
She  kissed  his  hand  as  it  held  the  loose  reins, 
"Lord,  I  am  not  worthy!"  was  the  thought  in  his 
heart.     He  sat  graven  in  the  saddle.     Sir  Knight  of 
the  Joyous  Heart  though  he  was,  the  unsought  kiss 
of  trust  gifted  him  with  a  self -reverence  that  would 
not  soon  forsake  him. 

Judith  was  rapping  on  the  door  and  calling  to 
Alida  not  to  be  frightened.  And  presently  it  was 
opened.  Peter  wanted  to  leave  Judith,  now  that  she 
was  safely  at  the  end  of  her  journey,  but  she  would 
not  hear  of  it  till  he  had  eaten. 

"You  would  have  had  your  comfortable  sup 
per  five  hours  ago  had  you  not  been  playing  cav- 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

alier  to  me  all  over  the  wilderness."     And  Peter 
yielded. 

Judith  busied  herself  about  the  kitchen.  Her 
mood  of  racking  apprehension  had  disappeared. 
Indian  stoicism  had  again  the  guiding  hand.  She 
waved  Peter  from  the  fire  that  she  was  kindling,  as 
if  he  were  a  blundering  incompetent.  But  she  let 
him  slice  the  bacon  and  grind  the  coffee  as  one 
lets  a  child  help.  Alida  came  in,  white-faced  and 
anxious  over  the  long  absence  of  her  husband,  but 
conscientiously  hospitable  nevertheless.  Peter  no 
ticed  that  Judith  made  a  gallant  pretence  of  eat 
ing,  crumbling  her  bread  and  talking  the  meanwhile. 
The  pale  wife,  who  had  little  to  say  at  the  best  of 
times,  was  put  to  the  test  to  say  anything  at  all. 
But,  withal,  their  intent  was  so  genuinely  hospitable 
that  Peter  himself  could  not  speak  with  the  pity  of 
it.  Accustomed  as  he  was  to  the  roughness  of  these 
frontier  cabins,  never  had  he  seen  a  human  habita 
tion  so  desolate  as  this.  The  mud  plaster  had 
fallen  away  from  between  the  logs,  showing  cross 
sections  of  the  melancholy  prospect.  An  at 
mosphere  of  tragedy  brooded  over  the  place. 
Whether  from  its  long  period  of  emptiness,  or  from 
the  vaguely  hinted  murder  of  the  woman  who  had 
died  there,  or  whether  it  took  its  character  from  the 
prevailing  desolation,  the  cabin  in  the  valley  was  an 
unlovely  thing.  Nor  did  the  cleanliness,  the  con 
scientious  making  the  best  of  things,  soften  the 
woful  aspect  of  the  place.  Rather  was  the  appeal 
the  more  poignant  to  the  seeing  eye,  as  the  brave 
makeshift  of  the  self-respecting  poor  strikes  deeper 

1 68 


THE    CABIN    IN   THE    VALLEY 

than  the  beggar's  whine.  The  house  was  bare  but 
for  the  few  things  that  Alida  could  take  in  the 
wagon  in  which  they  made  their  flight.  And  all 
through  the  pinch  of  poverty  and  grinning  emptiness 
there  was  visible  the  woman-touch,  the  brave  mak 
ing  the  best  of  nothing,  the  pitiful  preparation  for 
the  coming  of  the  man.  Wild  roses  from  the  creek 
bloomed  against  the  gnarled  and  weather -warped 
logs  of  the  walls.  Sprays  of  clematis  trailed  their 
white  bridal  beauty  from  cans  rescued  from  the 
ashes  of  a  camp-fire.  But  Alida  was  a  strategist 
when  it  came  to  adorning  her  home,  and  the  rusty 
receptacle  was  hid  beneath  trailing  green  leaves. 
There  was  at  the  window  a  muslin  curtain  that  in 
its  starched  and  rufHed  estate  was  strongly  sug 
gestive  of  a  child's  frock  hastily  converted  into  a 
window  drapery.  The  curtain  was  drawn  aside 
that  the  lamp  might  shed  its  beam  farther  on  the 
way  of  the  traveller  who  came  not.  There  was  but 
one  other  light  in  the  place,  a  bit  of  candle.  Alida 
apologized  for  the  poor  light  by  which  they  must 
eat,  but  she  did  not  offer  to  take  the  lamp  from  the 
window. 

Peter  was  no  longer  Sir  Knight  of  the  Joyous 
Heart  as  he  watched  the  little,  white-faced  woman, 
who  went  so  often  to  the  door  to  look  towards  the 
road  that  entered  the  valley  that  she  was  no  longer 
aware  of  what  she  did.  He  saw  her  wide  eyes  full 
of  fear,  the  bow  of  the  mouth  strained  taut  with 
anxiety,  her  unconscious  fear  of  him  as  one  of  the 
alien  faction,  and  withal  her  concern  for  his  comfort. 
Judith's  control  was  far  greater,  but  though  she 
•  169 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

hid  it  skilfully,  he  knew  the  sorrow  that  consumed 
her. 

There  was  a  cry  from  the  room  beyond,  and 
Judith,  snatching  up  the  candle,  went  in  to  the 
children.  All  three  of  them  were  sleeping  cross- 
ways  in  one  bed,  their  small,  round  arms  and  legs 
striking  out  through  the  land  of  dreams  as  swimmers 
breasting  the  waves.  She  gave  a  little  cry  of  de 
light  and  appreciation,  and  called  Peter  to  look. 
Little  Jim,  who  had  cried  in  some  passing  fear,  sat 
up  sleepily.  He  stretched  out  his  small  arms  to 
Peter,  whom  he  had  never  seen  before.  Peter  took 
him,  and  again  he  settled  to  sleep,  apparently  assured 
that  he  was  in  friendly  hands. 

The  warm,  small  body,  giving  itself  with  perfect 
confidence,  strongly  affected  Peter's  heightened 
susceptibilities.  In  the  very  nature  of  the  situation 
he  could  be  no  friend  to  Jim  Rodney,  yet  here  in 
his  arms  lay  Jim  Rodney's  son,  loving,  trusting  him 
instinctively.  Judith  noticed  that  his  face  paled 
beneath  its  many  coats  of  tan.  He  was  afraid  of 
the  little  sleeping  boy,  afraid  that  his  unaccustomed 
touch  might  hurt  him,  and  yet  loath  to  part  with  the 
small  burden.  Judith  took  the  boy  from  Peter  and 
placed  him  between  the  two  little  girls  on  the  bed. 

Through  the  window  they  could  see  Alida's  dress 
glimmering,  like  a  phantom  in  the  darkness,  as  she 
strained  her  eyes  towards  the  path.  Peter  hated 
to  leave  the  women  and  children  in  this  desolate 
place.  The  night  was  far  spent.  To  reach  the 
round-up  in  season,  he  could  at  best  snatch  a  couple 
of  hours'  sleep  and  be  again  in  the  saddle  while  the 

170 


THE    CABIN    IN    THE    VALLEY 

stars  still  shone.  His  saddle  and  saddle  blanket 
were  enough  for  him.  The  broad  canopy  of  heaven, 
the  bosom  of  mother  earth,  had  given  him  sound, 
dreamless  sleep  these  many  years.  He  bade  the 
women  good-night,  and  made  his  bed  where  the 
canon  gave  entrance  to  the  valley.  But  sleep  was 
slow  to  come.  Now,  in  that  vague,  uncertain  world 
where  we  fall  through  oceans  of  space,  and  the 
waking  is  the  dream,  the  dream  the  waking,  Peter 
caught  pale  flashes  of  Kitty's  gold  head  as  she  ran 
and  ran,  ever  in  the  pursuit  of  something,  she  knew 
not  what.  And  as  she  ran  hither  and  thither,  she 
would  turn  her  head  and  beckon  to  Peter,  and  as  he 
followed  he  felt  the  burden  of  years  come  upon  him. 
And  then  he  saw  Judith's  eyes,  still  and  grave.  He 
turned  and  wakened.  No,  it  was  not  Judith's  eyes, 
but  the  stars  above  the  mountain-tops. 


XII 

THE    ROUND-UP 

THE  stars  were  still  shining  when  Peter  Hamil 
ton  looked  at  his  watch  next  morning,  but 
he  sternly  fought  the  temptation  to  lie  another  two 
minutes  by  remembering  the  day's  work  before 
him,  and  went  in  search  of  the  horse  that  he  had 
not  picketed  overnight,  as  the  beast  required  a  full 
belly  after  the  hard  night's  ride  he  had  given  him. 
Peter  had  rolled  out  of  his  blankets  with  a  keen 
anticipatory  relish  for  the  day  ahead.  It  was  well, 
he  knew,  that  there  was  ample  work  of  a  definite 
nature  for  Peter  the  cow  -  puncher ;  as  for  Peter 
the  man,  he  was  singularly  at  sea.  Had  Judith 
Rodney  been  his  desert  comrade  all  these  cheerful 
years  for  him  to  get  his  first  belated  insight  into  the 
real  Judith  only  a  few  little  hours  back?  Or  was  it, 
he  wondered,  her  seeming  unconsciousness  of  him, 
as  she  rode  brave  and  sorrowful  through  the  night, 
to  avert,  if  might  be,  her  brother's  death — at  all 
events,  to  comfort  and  inspirit  the  frightened  wom 
an  and  her  little  children — that  had  freshly  tinged  the 
friendship  he  had  so  long  felt  for  her?  Many  were 
the  questions  that  Peter  vaguely  put  to  himself  as 
he  started  out  for  his  long  day  in  the  saddle;  and 

172 


THE    ROUND-UP 

none  of  them  he  answered.  Indeed,  he  could  not 
satisfactorily  explain  to  himself  why  he  should  think 
of  Judith  at  all  in  this  way — Judith,  whom  he  had 
known  so  long,  and  upon  whom  he  counted  so 
securely — Judith,  who  understood  things,  and  was 
as  good  a  comrade  as  a  man.  Surely  it  was  a 
strange  thing  that  he  should  discover  himself  in  a 
sentimental  dream  of  Judith! 

For  it  was  in  such  dreams  that  Katherine  Cole- 
brooke  had  figured  ever  since  Peter  could  remember. 
For  years,  indeed  —  and  Judith  knew  it!  —  he  had 
stood,  tame  and  tractable,  waiting  for  Chloe  to 
throw  her  dainty  lariat.  But  Chloe  had  intimated 
that  her  graceful  fingers  were  engaged  with  the 
inkpot  and  her  head  with  schemes  for  further 
sonneting.  Chloe  was  becoming  famous.  To  Peter, 
who  was  unmodern,  there  was  little  to  be  gained  in 
arguing  against  a  state  of  affairs  so  crassly  absurd 
as  career-getting  for  women.  At  such  seasons  it 
behooved  sane  men  to  pray  for  patience  rather 
than  the  gift  of  tongues.  When  the  disheartened 
fair  should  weary  of  the  phantom  pursuit,  then 
might  the  man  of  patience  have  his  little  day. 
Peter  winced  at  the  picture.  To  the  world  he 
knew  that  his  long  waiting  on  the  brink  of  the  bog, 
while  his  ambitious  lady  floundered  after  false  lights, 
was,  in  truth,  no  more  impressive  a  spectacle  than 
the  anguished  squawking  of  a  hen  who  watches  a 
brood  of  ducklings,  of  her  own  hatching,  try  their 
luck  in  the  pond. 

And  there  was  Judith  the  great-hearted,  Judith 
who  was  as  inspiring  as  a  breath  of  hill  air,  Judith 
12  173 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

with  no  thought  of  careers  beyond  the  loyal  doing 
of  her  woman's  part,  Judith,  trusty  and  loyal — 
and  Judith  with  that  accursed  family  connection ! 

Peter  tightened  his  cinch  and  turned  his  horse 
westward.  The  stars  had  grown  dim  in  the  sky. 
The  world  that  the  night  before  had  seemed  to  float 
in  a  silvery  effulgence  looked  gray  and  old.  The 
cabin  in  the  valley  flaunted  its  wretched  squalor, 
like  a  beggar  seeking  alms  on  the  highway.  Riding 
by,  Peter  lifted  his  sombrero.  "Sweet  dreams, 
gentle  lady!"  He  dug  the  rowel  into  his  horse's  side 
and  began  his  day  at  no  laggard  pace.  Nor  did  he 
spare  his  horse  in  the  miles  that  lay  between  him 
and  breakfast.  The  beast  would  have  no  more 
work  to  do  that  day,  when  once  he  reached  camp, 
and  Peter  was  not  in  his  tenderest  mood  as  he 
spurred  through  the  gray  of  the  morning.  The 
pale,  chastened  world  was  all  his  own  at  this  hour. 
Not  a  creature  was  stirring.  The  mountains,  the 
valleys,  the  softly  huddled  hills  slept  in  the  deep 
hush  that  is  just  before  the  dawn.  He  looked  about 
with  questioning  eyes.  Last  night  this  very  road 
had  been  a  pale  silver  thread  winding  from  the 
mountain  crests  into  a  world  of  dreams.  To-day 
it  was  but  a  trail  across  the  range.  "Where  are  the 
snows  of  y ester  year?"  he  quoted,  with  a  certain 
early-morning  grimness.  At  heart  he  was  half  in 
clined  to  believe  Judith  responsible  for  the  vanished 
world;  Judith,  Judith  —  he  was  riding  away  from 
her  as  fast  as  his  horse  could  gallop,  and  yet  his 
thoughts  perversely  lingered  about  the  cabin  in  the 
valley. 


THE    ROUND-UP 

After  a  couple  of  hours'  hard  riding  he  could 
dimly  make  out  specks  moving  on  that  huge  back 
ground  of  space,  and  presently  his  horse  neighed 
and  put  fresh  spirit  into  his  gait,  recognizing  his 
fellows  in  moving  dots  on  the  vast  perspective. 
And  being  a  beast  of  some  intelligence,  for  all  his 
heavy-footed  failings,  he  reasoned  that  food  and 
rest  would  soon  be  his  portion.  Peter  had  no  fur 
ther  use  for  the  rowel. 

Breakfast  was  already  well  under  way  when  he 
reached  camp.  The  outfit,  seated  on  saddles  in  a 
semicircle  about  the  chuck  wagon,  ate  with  that 
peculiar  combination  of  haste  and  skill  that  doubt 
less  the  life  of  the  saddle  counteracts,  as  digestive 
troubles  are  apparently  unknown  among  plains 
men.  The  cook,  in  handing  Peter  his  tin  plate,  cup, 
spoon,  and  black  -  handled  fork,  asked  him  if  "he 
would  take  overland  trout  or  Cincinnati  chicken, 
this  morning?"  The  cook  never  omitted  these  jocu 
lar  inquiries  regarding  the  various  camp  names  for 
bacon.  He  seemed  to  think  that  a  choice  of  alias 
was  as  good  as  a  change  of  menu.  There  was  little 
talk  at  breakfast,  and  that  bearing  chiefly  on  the 
day's  work.  Every  one  was  impatient  for  an  early 
start.  The  horse  wrangler  had  his  string  waiting, 
the  cook  was  scouring  his  iron  pots,  saddles  were 
thrown  over  horses  fresh  from  a  long  night's  good 
grazing,  cinches  were  tightened,  slickers  and  blank 
ets  were  adjusted,  and  camp  melted  away  in  a  troup 
of  horsemen  winding  away  through  the  gray  of  early 
morning. 

The  scene  of  the  beef  round-up  was  a  mighty 

175 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

plain,  affording  limitless  scope  for  handling  the 
cattle  of  a  thousand  hills.  In  the  distance  rose  the 
first  undulations  of  the  mountains,  that  might  be 
likened  to  the  surplusage  of  space  that  rolled  the 
length  of  the  sweeping  levels,  then  heaped  high  to 
the  blue.  The  specks  in  the  far  distance  began  to 
grow  as  if  the  screw  of  a  field-glass  were  bringing 
them  nearer,  turning  them  into  horsemen,  bunches 
of  cattle,  "chuck- wagons"  of  the  different  outfits, 
reserves  of  horses  restrained  by  temporary  rope- 
corrals,  all  the  equipment  of  a  great  round-up. 
Dozens  of  men,  multitudes  of  horses,  hordes  of  cattle 
— the  mighty  plain  swallowed  all  the  little,  prancing, 
galloping,  bellowing  things,  and  still  looked  mighty 
in  its  loneliness.  Fling  a  handful  of  toys  from  a 
Noah's  Ark — if  they  make  such  simple  toys  now — 
in  an  ordinary  field,  and  the  little,  wooden  men, 
horses  and  cows,  will  suggest  the  round-up  in  relation 
to  its  background.  Men  darted  hither  and  thither, 
yelling  shrilly ;  cows — born  apparently  to  be  leaders 
— broke  from  the  bunches  to  which  they,  had  been 
assigned  and  started  at  a  clumsy  run,  followed  by 
kindred  susceptible  to  example.  Cow  -  punchers, 
waiting  for  just  such  manifestations  of  individuality, 
whirled  after  them  like  comets,  and  soon  they  were 
again  in  the  pawing,  heaving,  sweltering  bunch  to 
which  they  belonged. 

Peter  Hamilton,  whose  particular  skill  as  a  cow- 
puncher  lay  in  that  branch  of  the  profession  known 
as  "cutting  out,"  found  that  the  work  of  the  rustlers 
had  been  carried  on  with  no  unsparing  hand  since 
the  early  spring  round-up.  Calves  bearing  the  "H 

175 


THE    ROUND-UP 

L  "  brand — that  claimed  by  a  company  known  to  be 
made  up  of  cattle-thieves — followed  mothers  bear 
ing  almost  every  brand  that  grazed  herds  in  that 
part  of  the  State.  The  Wetmore  outfit,  that  used  a 
"W"  enclosed  in  a  square,  were  apparently  the 
heaviest  losers.  The  cows  and  calves  were  herded 
at  the  right  of  the  plain,  convenient  to  the  branding- 
pen,  the  steers  well  away  to  the  opposite  side.  As 
Peter  drove  a  "  W-square"  cow,  followed  by  a  little, 
white  -  faced  calf,  whose  brand  had  plainly  been 
tampered  with,  he  heard  one  of  his  associates  say: 

"There's  nothing  small  about  the  *H  L'  except 
their  methods." 

44 What's  'H  L'  stand  for,  anyway?"  the  other 
cow-puncher  asked. 

"Why,  Hell,  or,  How  Long;  depends  whether 
you're  with  'em  or  again  'em." 

Peter  wheeled  from  the  men  and  headed  for  the 
bunch  he  was  cutting  out.  He  fancied  that  the 
man  had  looked  at  him  strangely  as  he  offered  a 
choice  of  meanings  for  the  "H  L"  —  and  yet  he 
could  not  have  known  that  Peter  had  gone  to 
Rodney's  cabin  last  night.  He  flung  himself  heart 
and  soul  into  his  work,  dashing  full  tilt  at  the 
snorting,  stamping  bedlam,  enveloped  in  clouds  of 
dust  that  dimmed  the  very  daylight.  Calves  bleat 
ed  piteously  as  they  were  jammed  in  the  thickening 
pack.  Peter  shouted,  swung  the  rope  right  and 
left,  thinning  the  bunch  about  him,  and  a  second 
later  emerged,  driving  before  him  a  cow,  followed 
by  a  calf.  These  were  turned  over  to  cow-boys 
waiting  for  them.  Time  after  time  Hamilton  re- 

177 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

turned  to  that  mass  of  unconscious  power,  that  with 
a  single  rush  could  have  annihilated  the  little  band 
of  horsemen  that  handled  them  with  the  skill  of  a 
dealer  shuffling,  cutting,  dealing  a  pack  of  cards. 

To  the  left  were  the  steers,  pawing  and  tearing  up 
the  earth  in  a  very  ecstasy  of  impotent  fury.  Picture 
the  giant  propeller  of  an  ocean  liner  thrashing  about 
in  the  sands  of  the  desert  and  you  will  have  an 
approximate  knowledge  of  the  dust  raised  by  a 
thousand  steers.  Their  long-drawn,  shrieking  bellow 
had  a  sinister  note.  Horns,  hoofs,  tails  beat  the 
air,  their  bloodshot  eyes  looked  menacingly  in  every 
direction;  but  a  handful  of  cow-boys  kept  them  in 
check,  circling  round  and  round  them  on  ponies  who 
did  their  work  without  waiting  for  quirt  or  rowel. 

The  noonday  sun  looked  down  upon  a  scene  that 
to  the  eye  unskilled  in  these  things  was  as  confusion 
worse  confounded.  Cow  -  boys  dashed  from  no 
where  in  particular  and  did  amazing  things  with  a 
bit  of  rope,  sending  it  through  the  air  with  snaky 
undulations  after  flying  cattle.  The  rope,  taking 
on  lifelike  coils,  would  pursue  the  flying  beast  like 
an  aerial  reptile,  then  the  noose  would  fall  true, 
and  the  thing  was  done.  A  second  later  a  couple 
of  cow-boys  would  be  examining  the  disputed  brand 
on  the  prone  animal. 

The  smell  of  burning  flesh  and  hair  rose  from  the 
branding-pen  and  mingled  with  the  stench  of  the 
herds  in  one  noisome  compound.  The  yells  of  the 
cow-punchers,  each  having  its  different  bearing  on 
the  work  in  hand,  were  all  but  lost  in  the  dull, 
steady  roar  of  the  cattle,  bellowing  in  a  chorus  of 


THE    ROUND-UP 

fear,  rage,  and  pain.  And  still  the  work  of  sorting, 
branding,  cutting-out,  went  steadily  on.  Though 
an  outsider  would  not  have  perceived  it,  the  work 
was  as  crisp-cut  and  exact  in  its  methods  as  the 
work  in  a  counting-house.  One  of  the  cow-boys,  in 
hot  pursuit  of  a  fractious  heifer,  encountered  a 
gopher-hole,  and  horse  and  rider  were  down  in  a 
heap.  In  a  second  a  dozen  helping  hands  were 
dragging  him  from  under  the  horse.  He  limped 
painfully,  but  stooped  to  examine  his  horse.  The 
beast  had  broken  a  leg,  and  turned  on  the  man  eyes 
almost  human  in  their  pain. 

"Bob,  Bob!"  The  cow-puncher  went  down  on 
his  knees  and  put  his  arms  about  the  neck  of  his 
pet.  "My  God!"  he  said,  "me  and  Bob  was  just 
like  brothers.  Everybody  knowed  that."  He  un- 
cinched  the  saddle  with  clumsy  tenderness ;  not  a  man 
thought  a  whit  less  of  him  because  he  could  not  see 
well  at  the  moment.  He  turned  his  head  away,  that 
he  might  not  see  the  well-  aimed  shot  that  would 
release  his  pet  from  pain.  Then  he  limped  away 
after  another  horse — it  was  all  in  the  day's  work. 

The  beef  contract  called  for  a  thousand  steers, 
four  and  five  years  old,  and  these  having  been  well 
and  duly  counted,  and  some  dozen  extra  head  added 
in  case  of  accident,  they  were  immediately  started 
on  the  trail ,  as  they  could  accomplish  some  seven  or 
eight  miles  before  being  bedded  down  for  the  night. 
Hamilton,  who  had.  crossed  to  the  beef  side  of  the 
round-up  to  have  a  necessary  word  with  the  ' '  Circle- 
Star"  foreman,  was  amazed  to  find  Simpson  making 
ready  to  start  with  the  trail  herd.  Peter  inquired, 

179 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

with  a  few  expletives,  "  how  long  he  had  been  a 
cow-man,  in  good  and  regular  standing?" 

"As  far  as  the  regularity  is  concerned,  that  would 
be  a  pretty  hard  thing  to  answer,  but  he's  had  an 
interest  in  the  'XXX'  since — since — " 

"He  drove  Rodney's  sheep  over  the  cliff?" 

"Ain't  you  a  little  hard  on  the  beginning  of  his 
cattle  career?  It  usually  goes  by  a  more  business 
like  name,  but — "  he  shrugged  his  shoulders — "it's 
up  to  the  'XXX.'  We  wouldn't  have  him  help 
to  pull  bogged  cattle  out  of  a  creek." 

The  beeves,  hidden  in  a  simoom  of  their  own 
stamping,  were  gradually  being  pressed  forward  on 
the  trail,  a  huge  pawn,  ignorant  of  its  own  strength, 
manipulated  by  a  handful  of  men  and  horses.  Its 
bellowing,  like  the  tuning  of  a  thousand  bass- 
fiddles,  shook  the  stillness  like  the  long,  sullen  roar 
of  the  sea,  as  out  of  the  plain  they  thundered,  to 
feed  the  multitude. 

"Well,  there  goes  as  pretty  a  bunch  of  porter 
houses  as  I'd  want  to  put  tooth  to.  If  I  get  away 
from  here  within  the  next  two  months,  as  I'm  ex 
pecting,  doubtless  I'll  meet  some  of  you  again  with 
your  personality  somewhat  obscured  by  reason  of 
fried  onions." 

The  foreman  of  the  "Circle-Star"  waved  his  hand 
after  the  slowly  moving  herd  that  gradually  pressed 
forward  like  an  army  in  loose  marching  order.  Out 
riders  galloped  ahead,  like  darting  insects,  and  point 
ing  the  lumbering  mass  that  trailed  its  half-mile 
length  at  a  snail's-pace.  The  great  column  steadily 
advanced,  checked,  turned,  led  as  easily  as  a  child 

180 


THE    ROUND-UP 

trails  his  little  steam-cars  after  him  on  the  nursery 
floor,  and  always  by  the  little  force  of  a  handful  of 
men  and  a  few  horses. 

After  supper  came  general  relaxation  around  the 
camp-fire.  The  men,  who  had  all  day  been  strung 
to  a  keen  pitch  of  nervous  energy,  lounged  in  loose, 
picturesque  uncouthness,  while  each  began  to  un 
ravel  his  own  lively  miscellany  of  information  or 
invention.  There  was  jest,  laughter,  spinning  of 
yarns,  singing  of  songs.  As  Peter  lay  in  the  fire 
light,  smoking  his  brier-wood,  he  noticed  that  the 
man  next  him  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  poring 
over  a  letter,  holding  it  close  to  the  blaze,  now  at 
arm's -length,  which  was  hardly  surprising,  con 
sidering  the  penmanship  of  the  more  common 
variety  of  billet-doux.  The  man  was  plainly  dis 
appointed  that  Peter  would  not  notice  or  comment. 
Finally  he  folded  it  up,  and  with  sentimental  sig 
nificance  returned  it  to  the  left  side  pocket  of  his 
flannel  shirt,  and  remarked  to  Peter,  "It's  from 
her." 

"Indeed,"  said  Peter,  who  had  not  the  faintest 
notion  who  "her"  could  be.  "Let  me  congratulate 
you." 

"Yes,  sir,"  and  there  was  conviction  in  the  cow- 
puncher's  tone;  "it's  from  old  man  Kinson's  girl,  up 
to  the  Basin,  and  the  parson's  goin'  to  give  us  the 
life  sentence  soon.  A  man  gets  sick  o'  helling  it  all 
over  creation."  He  rolled  a  cigarette,  lit  it,  took 
a  puff  or  two,  then  turned  to  Peter,  as  one  whose 
acquaintance  with  the  broader  side  of  life  entitled 
him  to  speak  with  a  certain  authority.  "Is  it  that, 

181 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

or  is  it  that  we're  getting  on,  a  little  long  in  the 
tooth,  logy  in  our  movements?" 

"I  think  we're  just  sick  of  helling  it."  Peter 
looked  towards  the  star  that  last  night  had  been 
the  beacon  towards  which  he  and  Judith  had 
scaled  the  heights.  "Yes,  we  get  sick  of  helling  it 
after  we've  turned  thirty." 

"Then  I  can't  be  making  a  mistake.  If  I  thought 
it  was  because  I  was  getting  on,  I'd  stampede  this 
here  range.  It  don't  seem  fair  to  a  girl  to  allow 
that  you're  broke,  tamed,  and  know  the  way  to  the 
corral,  when  it's  just  that  you're  needin'  to  go  to  an 
old  man's  home." 

"Now  this  is  really  love,"  said  Peter  to  himself, 
with  interest.  "This  is  humility."  A  sympathetic 
liking  for  the  self-distrustful  lover  surged  hot  and 
generous  into  Peter's  heart,  and  he  continued  to 
himself:  "Now that's  what  Judith  would  appreciate 
in  a  man,  some  directness,  some  humility!"  Poor 
Judith!  Poor  burden -bearer!  Who  was  to  love 
her  as  she  deserved  to  be  loved,  even  as  old  man 
Kinson's  girl,  of  the  Basin,  was  loved?  Yet  suppose 
some  one  did  love  her  in  such  fashion  and  she  re 
turned  it?  It  was  a  picture  Peter  had  never  con 
jured  up  before.  Nonsense!  he  was  accustomed  to 
think  of  Judith  a  great  deal,  and  that  was  not  the 
way  to  think  of  her.  "Dear  Judith!"  said  Peter, 
half  unconsciously  to  himself,  and  looked  again  at 
the  fellow,  who  had  gone  back  to  his  dingy  letter  and 
continued  to  reread  it  in  the  fire-light  as  if  he  hoped 
to  extract  some  further  meaning  from  the  now 
familiar  words.  Nature  had  fitted  him  out  with  a 

182 


THE    ROUND-UP 

rag-bag  assortment  of  features — the  nose  of  a  clown, 
the  eyes  of  a  ferret,  the  mouth  that  hangs  agape 
like  a  badly  hinged  door,  the  mouth  of  the  incessant 
talker.  And  withal,  as  he  lounged  in  the  fire-light, 
dreamily  turning  his  love-letter,  he  had  a  sort  of 
superphysical  beauty,  reflected  of  the  glow  that 
many  waters  cannot  quench. 

Costigan,  who  had  led  the  merriment  against 
Simpson  at  Mrs.  Clark's  eating-house,  was  playing 
"mumbly-peg"  with  Texas  Tyler.  They  had  been 
working  like  Trojans  all  day  at  the  round-up,  but 
they  pitched  their  pocket-knives  with  as  keen  a  zest 
as  school-boys,  bickering  over  points  in  the  game, 
accusing  each  other  of  cheating,  calling  on  the 
rest  of  the  company  to  umpire  some  disputed 
point. 

But  presently,  from  the  opposite  side  of  the  fire, 
some  one  began  to  sing,  in  a  rich  barytone,  a  dirge- 
like  thing  that  caught  the  attention  of  first  one  then 
another  of  the  men,  making  them  stop  their  yarning 
and  knife-throwing  to  listen.  The  tune,  in  its  home 
ly  power  to  evoke  the  image  of  the  ceremonial  of 
death,  was  more  or  less  familiar  to  most  of  them. 
There  was  a  conscious  funeral  pageantry  in  the  ring 
of  its  measured  phrases  that  recalled  to  many 
burials  of  the  dead  that  had  taken  place  in  their 
widely  scattered  homes.  Mrs.  Barbauld's  hymn, 
"Flee  as  a  Bird  to  the  Mountain,"  are  the  words 
usually  sung  to  the  air. 

Costigan  presently  cut  across  the  dirgelike  re 
frain  with:  "Phwat  th'  divil  is  ut  about  that 
chune  that  Oi'm  thinkin'  of?" 

183 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

"This,"  said  the  man  with  the  barytone  voice, 
"is  the  tune  that  Nick  Steele  saved  his  neck  to." 

"Begorra,  that's  ut.  I  wasn't  there  mesilf,  but 
Oi've  heard  th'  story  told  more  times  than  Oi've 
years  to  me  credit." 

"My  father  wras  in  that  necktie  party,"  spoke  up 
a  young  cow-puncher,  "and  I've  heard  him  tell  the 
story  scores  of  times,  and  he  always  wondered  why 
the  devil  they  let  Steele  off.  Never  could  under 
stand  it  after  the  thing  was  done.  He  was  talking 
of  it  once  to  a  man  who  was  a  sharp  on  things  like 
mesmerism,  and  the  man  called  it  hypnotic  sugges 
tion.  Said  that  Steele  got  control  of  the  whole 
outfit  and  mesmerized  'em  so  they  couldn't  do  a 
thing  to  him." 

Several  of  the  men  asked  for  the  story,  echoes  of 
which  had  come  down  through  all  the  forty  years 
since  its  happening.  And  the  cow-puncher,  lighting 
a  cigarette,  began: 

"It  was  in  the  good  old  forty  -  nine  days  in 
California,  when  gold  was  sometimes  more  plentiful 
than  bread,  and  women  were  so  scarce  that  one 
day  when  they  found  a  girl's  shoe  on  the  trail  they 
fitted  a  gold  heel  to  it  and  put  it  up  in  camp  to 
worship.  But  sentiment  wasn't  exactly  their  long 
suit,  and  any  little  difficulties  that  cropped  up  were 
straightened  out  by  the  vigilance  committee — and 
a  rope.  One  day  a  saddle,  or  maybe  it  was  a  gun, 
that  didn't  belong  to  him,  was  found  among  this 
man  Steele's  traps,  and  though  he  swore  that  some 
one  had  put  it  there  for  a  grudge,  the  committee 
thought  that  a  hemp  necktie  was  the  easiest  way 

184 


THE    ROUND-UP 

out  of  the  argument.  And  this  here  Steele  party 
finds  himself,  at  the  age  of  twenty-four,  with  some 
thing  like  thirty  minutes  of  life  to  his  credit.  He 
don't  take  on  none,  nor  make  a  play  for  mercy,  nor 
try  any  fancy  speech-making.  He  just  waits  round, 
kinder  pale,  but  seemin'  indifferent,  considerin*  it 
was  his  funeral  that  was  impendin'.  I've  heard 
my  father  say  that  he  was  a  tall,  slim  boy,  with  a 
kind  of  girlish  prettiness,  and  the  committee  looked 
some  for  hysterics  and  they  didn't  get  none.  The 
noose  was  made  ready  and  they  told  Steele  he  could 
have  five  minutes  to  pray,  if  he  wanted  to,  or  he 
could  take  it  out  in  cursing,  just  as  he  chose.  The 
boy  said  he  felt  that  he  hadn't  quite  all  that  was 
coming  to  him  in  the  way  of  enjoyment,  and  that 
while  he  was  far  from  criticising  the  vigilance 
committee,  he  was  not  altogether  partial  to  the 
nature  of  his  demise,  and  if  it  was  just  the  same  to 
them,  instead  of  praying  or  cursing,  he'd  take  that 
five  minutes  for  a  song. 

"  They  was  agreeable,  and  he  up  and  steps  on  the 
scaffold,  what  they  was  mighty  proud  of,  it  bein' 
about  the  only  substantial  structure  the  town  could 
boast.  He  began  to  sing  that  thing  you've  all 
been  listening  to,  and  he  had  a  voice  like  water 
falling  light  and  fine  in  a  pool  below.  They  crowded 
up  close  about  the  scaffold  and  listened.  The 
words  he  put  to  it  were  his  own  story,  just  like  those 
old  minstrels  that  you  read  about,  and  at  the  end 
of  each  verse  came  the  chorus,  slow  and  solemn  as 
the  moment  after  something  great  has  happened. 
There  wasn't  a  hangin'-face  in  the  crowd  after  he 

185 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

was  started.  At  some  time  or  other  every  man  had 
heard  somebody  he  thought  a  heap  of,  buried  to 
that  tune,  and  his  voice  got  to  workin'  on  their 
imaginations  and  turned  their  hearts  to  water.  I 
don't  remember  anything  but  the  chorus — that  went 
like  this: 

"'Who'll  weep  for  me,  on  the  gallows  tree, 
As  I  sway  in  the  wind  and  swing? 

Is  there  never  a  tear  to  be  shed  for  me, 
As  I  swing  by  a  hempen  string? 

Who'll  weep,  who'll  keep 

Watch,  as  I'm  rocked  to  sleep, 
Rocked  by  a  hempen  string?'" 

There  was  a  long  silence,  broken  only  by  the 
crackle  of  the  logs  in  the  camp-fire  and  the  night 
sounds  of  the  lonely  plain.  The  leaping  flames 
showed  a  group  of  thoughtful  faces.  Finally,  Cos- 
tigan  broke  the  silence  with: 

"Begorra,  'tis  some  av  thim  'ud  be  doin'  well  to 
be  lukin'  to  their  music  -  lessons  about  here,  Oi'm 
thinkin',  afther  th'  day's  wurruk." 

The  Irishman,  with  his  instinctive  loquacity,  had 
expressed  what  none  of  the  rest  would  have  con 
sidered  politic  to  hint.  It  was  like  the  giving  way 
of  the  pebble  that  starts  the  avalanche.  Soon  they 
were  deep  in  tales  of  lynchings.  Peter  knew  only  too 
well  the  trend  of  their  talk,  the  "XXX"  men  were 
feeling  the  public  pulse,  as  it  were.  Now,  according 
to  the  unwritten  code  of  the  plains,  lynching  was 
"meet,  right,  just,  and  available"  for  the  cattle- 
thief.  And  Peter  felt  himself  false  to  his  creed,  false 


THE    ROUND-UP 

to  his  employer,  false  to  himself,  in  seeking  to  evade 
the  question.  And  yet  that  pitiful  cabin,  the  white- 
faced  woman  running  to  the  door  so  often  that 
she  knew  not  what  she  did,  and  the  little  rosy  boy, 
who  had  put  out  his  arms  so  trustfully!  Peter 
broke  into  their  grewsome  yarning.  "Lord,  but 
you're  like  a  lot  of  old  women  just  come  from  a 
funeral!" 

"Whin  the  carpse  died  hard,  and  th'  wake  was 
a  success."  Costigan  turned  over.  "  Werra,  werra, 
but  we'll  be  seein'  fairies  the  night!" 

A  "  XXX  "  man  turned  his  head  with  a  deliberate 
slowness  and  regarded  Peter  with  narrowing  eyes: 
"If  the  subject  of  cattle-thieves  and  their  punish 
ment  is  unpleasant  to  the  gentleman  from  New 
York,  perhaps  he  will  favor  us  with  something  more 
cheerful."  It  was  the  same  man  who  had  given  the 
two  definitions  of  the  "H  L"  brand  that  morning 
at  the  round-up. 

"Delighted,"  said  Peter,  affecting  not  to  notice 
the  significance  of  the  man's  remark.  "Did  you 
ever  hear  of  the  time  that  Tony  Neville  was  burned 
with  snow?" 

The  "XXX"  man  yawned  long  and  audibly. 
No  one  seemed  especially  interested  in  Tony  Neville's 
having  been  burned  with  snow,  but  Peter  struck 
out  manfully,  just  in  time  to  head  off  a  man  who 
said  that  he  had  seen  Jim  Rodney  or  some  one 
who  looked  like  him,  following  the  trail-herd. 

"  Once  on  a  time,  when  it  paid  to  be  a  cattle-man," 
began  Peter,  "there  was  an  outfit  near  Laramie  that 
hailed  from  the  United  Kingdom,  every  mother's 

187 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

son  of  them.  A  fine,  manly  lot  of  fellows,  but 
wedded  to  calamity  along  of  their  cooks — not  the 
revered  range  article,"  and  Peter  waved  his  hand 
towards  the  "  W-square"  cook,  who  was  one  of  the 
party,  "but  the  pampered  ranch  article  that  boasts 
a  real  stove,  planted  in  a  real  kitchen,  the  spoiled 
darling  that  never  has  to  light  a  fire  out  of  wet  wood 
in  the  rain. 

"These  unhappy  Britons  had  every  species  of  ill 
luck  that  could  befall  an  outfit,  in  the  way  of  cooks; 
they  were  of  every  nationality,  age,  and  sex,  and  they 
stole,  drank,  quarrelled,  till  the  outfit  determined 
to  sweep  the  house  clear  of  them  and  do  its  own 
cooking.  Every  man  was  to  have  a  turn  at  it  for  a 
week.  There  was  a  Scotchman,  who  gave  them 
something  called  '  pease  bannocks,'  three  times  a  day ; 
followed  by  an  Irishman,  who  breakfasted  them 
on  potatoes  and  whiskey.  There  was  an  English 
man,  who  had  a  beef  slaughtered  every  time  he 
fancied  a  tenderloin.  There  was  a  Welshman,  who 
sang  as  he  cooked.  There  were  as  many  different 
kinds  of  indigestion  as  there  were  men  in  the  outfit. 
They  would  beg  to  do  night-herding,  anything  to  get 
them  away  from  that  ranch.  Finally,  when  their 
little  tummies  got  so  bad  that  their  overcoats 
thickened,  or  wore  through,  or  whatever  happens  to 
stomachs'  overcoats  that  are  treated  unkindly,  some 
one's  maiden  aunt  sent  him  a  tract  saying  that  rice 
was  the  salvation  of  the  human  race,  as  witness  the 
Chinese.  Whose ver  turn  it  was  to  cook  that  week 
determined  to  try  the  old  lady's  prescription.  Rice 
was  procured,  about  a  peck,  I  think;  and  the  man 

188 


THE    ROUND-UP 

who  was  cooking,  pro  tern,  put  the  entire  quantity 
on  to  boil  in  a  huge  ham-boiler,  over  a  slow  fire,  as 
per  the  directions  of  the  maiden  aunt.  The  rice 
seemed  to  be  doing  nicely,  when  some  one  came  in 
and  said  that  a  bunch  of  antelope  was  over  on  the 
hills  and  there  was  a  good  chance  to  get  a  couple. 
Every  man  got  his  gun,  all  but  the  cook,  and  he 
looked  at  the  rice,  that  hadn't  done  a  thing  over 
the  slow  fire,  in  a  way  that  would  melt  your  heart. 
'Just  my  luck  that  it  should  be  my  week  to  pot- 
wrestle  when  there's  good  hunting  right  at  one's 
front  door.' 

"  '  Oh,  come  on,'  some  one  said.  '  Didn't  Kellett's 
aunt  say  the  rice  ought  to  be  cooked  over  a  slow 
fire?  Kellett,  get  your  aunt's  letter  and  read  the 
directions  for  cooking  that  rice  again.' 

"The  cook  didn't  need  a  second  invitation,  and 
they  got  into  their  saddles,  cook  and  all,  and  went 
for  the  antelope. 

"Now  antelope  are  not  like  stationary  wash-tubs; 
they  move  about.  And  when  that  particular  out 
fit  arrived  at  the  spot  where  those  antelope  were 
last  seen,  they  had  moved,  but  the  boys  found 
traces  of  them,  and  continued  on  their  trail.  They 
went  in  the  foot-hills  and  they  searched  for  those 
antelope  all  day.  They  caught  up  with  old  man 
Hall's  outfit  at  dinner-time  and  were  invited  to  take 
a  bite.  Coming  home  by  way  of  the  'Circle-Star' 
ranch,  Colonel  Semmes  asked  them  in  to  have  a 
mint-julep;  the  colonel  was  a  South  Carolinian,  and 
he  had  just  succeeded  in  raising  some  mint.  They 
had  several — I  fear  more  than  several — drinks  before 
13  l89 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

leaving  for  home,  with  never  a  trace  of  antelope  nor 
a  thought  of  the  rice  cooking  over  the  slow  fire. 
The  colonel  remembered  some  hard  cider  that  he 
had,  and  topping  off  on  that,  they  set  out.  The 
weather  was  pretty  warm,  and  on  their  way  home 
they  experienced  some  remorse  over  the  hard  cider. 
Now  hard  cider  is  an  accumulative  drink;  it  piles 
up  interest  like  debt  or  unpaid  taxes.  And  by  the 
time  those  Englishmen  had  turned  the  little  lane 
leading  into  their  home  corral,  they  saw  a  sight  that 
made  their  sombreros  rise.  As  I  have  said  before, 
it  was  hot,  being  somewhere  in  the  month  of  Au 
gust.  Gentlemen,  I  hardly  expect  you  to  believe 
me  when  I  say  it  was  snowing  on  their  house, 
and  not  on  another  God  blessed  thing  in  the  land 
scape. 

"The  blame  thing  about  it  was,  that  every  man 
took  the  phenomenon  to  be  his  own  private  view 
of  snakes,  or  their  bibulous  equivalent,  manifested 
in  another  and  more  terrifying  form.  Here  was  the 
August  sun  pouring  down  on  the  plain  where  their 
ranch -house  was  situated;  everything  in  sight  hot 
and  dry  as  a  lime-kiln,  grasshoppers  chirping  in  a 
hot-wave  prophecy,  and  snow  covering  the  house 
and  the  ground,  about  to  what  seemed  a  depth  of 
four  inches.  Every  one  of  them  felt  sensitive  about 
mentioning  what  he  saw  to  the  others.  You  see, 
gentlemen,  being  unfamiliar  with  American  drinks, 
and  especially  old  Massachusetts  cider,  they  mere 
ly  looked  to  keep  their  saddles  and  no  questions 
asked. 

"But  when  they  got  a  bit  closer  the  horror  in- 
190 


THE    ROUND-UP 

creased.  Flying  right  out  of  their  windows  were 
perfect  drifts  of  snow,  banks  of  it,  gentlemen,  and 
the  thermometer  up  past  a  hundred.  One  of  the 
men  looked  about  him  and  noticed  the  pallor  on  the 
faces  of  the  rest: 

"'Do  you  notice  anything  strange,  old  chap? 
These  cursed  American  drinks!' 

1 '  Strange!' — the  boy  he  had  spoken  to  was  about 
eighteen,  a  nice,  red-cheeked  English  lad  out  with 
his  uncle  learning  the  cattle  business.  '  Good  God!' 
the  boy  said.  'I've  always  tried  to  lead  a  good 
life,  and  here  I  am  a  pare  tic  before  I've  come  of 
age.' 

"  They  halted  their  horses  and  held  a  consultation. 
The  boss  came  to  the  conclusion  that  since  they 
had  all  seen  it,  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  con 
tinue  the  investigation  and  send  the  details  to  the 
'Society  for  Psychical  Research, 'when  he  got  down 
from  his  horse  and  walked  towards  the  door  of  the 
house.  At  his  approach,  as  if  to  rebuke  his  wanton 
curiosity,  a  great  blast  of  snow  blew  out  of  the 
window  and  got  him  full  in  the  face.  He  howled — 
the  snow  was  scalding  hot. 

"Then  they  remembered  the  rice." 

"Is  that  all?"  demanded  the  man  who  had 
wanted  to  talk  about  rustling. 

"Isn't  it  enough?"  said  Peter,  who  could  afford 
to  be  magnanimous,  now  that  he  had  accomplished 
his  point. 

"When  I  first  heard  that  story,  'bout  ten  years 
ago,  it  ended  with  the  Britishers  riding  like  hell 
over  to  the  Wolcott  ranch  to  borrow  umbrellas  to 

191 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

keep  off  the  hot  rice  while  they  got  into  the  house," 
said  the  man,  still  sulky. 

"That's  the  way  they  tell  it  to  tenderfeet,"  and 
Peter  turned  on  his  heel.  The  story-telling  for  the 
evening  was  over,  the  boys  got  their  blankets  and 
set  about  making  their  beds  for  the  night. 


XIII 

MARY'S    FIRST    DAY    IN    CAMP 

THE  first  day  spent  as  governess  to  the  family 
of  Yellett  reminded  Mary  Carmichael  of  those 
days  mentioned  in  the  opening  chapter  of  Genesis, 
days  wherein  whole  geological  ages  developed  and 
decayed.  Any  era,  geological  or  otherwise,  she  felt 
might  have  had  its  rise,  decline,  and  fall  during  that 
first  day  spent  in  a  sheep  camp. 

She  awoke  to  the  sound  of  faint  tinklings,  and 
accepted  the  towering  peaks  of  the  Wind  River 
mountains,  with  their  snowy  mantles  all  shadowy 
in  the  whitening  dawn,  and  the  warmer  grays  of 
huddling  foot-hills,  as  one  receives,  without  ques 
tion,  the  fantastic  visions  of  sleep.  The  faint  tinkling 
grew  nearer,  mingled  with  a  light  pitter  patter  and 
a  far  off  baa-ing  and  bleating;  then,  as  shadowy  as 
the  sheep  in  dreams,  a  great  flock  came  winding 
round  the  hill;  in  and  out  through  the  sage-brush 
they  went  and  came,  elusive  as  the  early  morning 
shadows  they  moved  among.  The  air  was  crystal 
line  and  sparkling;  creation's  first  morning  could 
not  have  promised  more.  It  would  have  been  in 
consistent  in  such  a  place  to  waken  in  a  house ;  the 
desert,  that  seemed  a  lifeless  sea,  the  sheep  moving 

193 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

like  gray  shadows,  were  all  parts  of  a  big,  new  world 
that  had  no  need  of  houses  built  by  hands. 

Ben,  oldest  of  the  Brobdingnag  tribe,  who  had 
greeted  Mary's  request  to  be  directed  to  "  the  house  " 
as  a  bit  of  dry  Eastern  humor,  led  the  herd  to 
pasture.  Ben's  right-hand  man  was  "Stump," 
the  collie,  so  named  because  he  had  no  tail  worth 
mentioning,  but  otherwise  in  full  possession  of  his 
faculties.  Stump  was  newly  broken  to  his  official 
duties  and  authority  sat  heavily  on  him.  Keenly 
alert,  he  flew  hither  and  thither,  first  after  one 
straying  member  of  the  herd,  then  another,  barking 
an  early  morning  roll-call  as  he  went.  Two  other 
male  Brobdingnags  came  from  some  sequestered  spot 
in  the  landscape  and  joined  Ben — Mary  recognized 
two  more  pupils. 

Mrs.  Yellet  then  unrolled  the  pillow  constructed 
the  night  previous  of  such  garments  as  she  had  been 
willing  to  dispense  with,  and  put  them  on.  The 
vastness  of  her  surroundings  did  not  prevent  her 
from  locating  the  minutest  article,  and  Mary  gave 
her  the  respectful  admiration  of  a  woman  who  has 
spent  a  great  deal  of  time  searching  for  things  in  an 
infinitely  smaller  space.  The  matriarch  then  called 
the  remaining  members  of  her  household  officially — 
the  Misses  Yellett  accomplished  their  early  morning 
toilets  with  the  simplicity  of  young  robins.  Only 
the  new  governess  hung  back,  but  finally  mus 
tered  up  enough  courage  to  say  that  if  such 
a  thing  was  possible  she  would  like  to  have  a 
bath. 

Mrs.  Yellett  greeted  her  request  with  the  amused 
194 


MARY'S    FIRST    DAY    IN    CAMP 

tolerance  of  one  who  has  never  given  such  a  trifle 
a  thought. 

"The  habit  of  bathing,"  she  commented,  "is 
shore  like  religion:  them  that  observes  it  wonders 
how  them  that  neglects  it  gets  along."  She  beckon 
ed  Mary  to  follow,  and  led  the  way  to  a  bunch  of 
willows  that  grew  about  a  stone's-throw  from  the 
camp.  "Here  be  a  whole  creek  full  of  water,  if 
you  don't  lack  the  fortitood.  It's  cold  enough  to 
sell  for  ten  cents  a  glass  down  to  Texas." 

Somewhat  dismayed,  Mary  stepped  gingerly  into 
the  creek.  Its  intense  cold  numbed  her  at  first, 
but  a  second  later  awoke  all  her  young  lustiness,  and 
she  returned  to  camp  in  a  fine  glow  of  courage  to 
encounter  whatever  else  there  might  be  of  novelty. 
Mrs.  Yellett  was  preparing  breakfast  at  a  sheet- 
iron  stove,  assisted  by  Cacta  and  Clematis. 

"  Your  hankering  after  a  bath  like  this  " — she  add 
ed  another  handful  of  flour  to  the  biscuit  dough — 
"  do  shore  remind  me  of  an  Englishman  who  come 
to  visit  near  Laramie  in  the  days  of  plenty,  when 
steers  had  jumped  to  forty-five.  This  yere  Britisher 
was  exhibit  stock,  shore  enough,  being  what's  called 
a  peer  of  the  realm,  which  means,  in  his  own  coun 
ty,  that  he  is  just  nacherally  entitled  from  the  start 
to  h'ist  his  nose  high. 

"The  outfit  he  was  goin'  to  visit  wasn't  in  the 
habit  of  havin'  peers  drop  in  on  them  casual,  but 
they  aimed  to  make  him  feel  that  he  wasn't  the 
first  of  the  herd  that  headed  that  way  by  a 
quart" — she  cut  four  biscuits  with  a  tin  cup,  and 
resumed — "to  which  end  they  rounded  up,  every 

195 


JUDITH    OP    THE    PLAINS 

specimen  of  canned  food  that's  ever  come  across  the 
Rockies. 

"Let  him  ask  for  "salmon  esplinade,"  let  him 
ask  for  "chicken  marine -go,"  let  him  ask  for 
plum  -  pudding,  let  him  ask  for  hair  -  oil  or  throat 
lozengers,  this  yere  outfit  calls  his  bluff,'  says  Billy 
Ames,  who  owns  the  'twin  star'  outfit  and  is 
anticipatin'  this  peer  as  a  guest. 

"Well,  just  as  everything  is  ready,  the  can-opener, 
sharp  as  a  razor,  waitin'  to  open  up  such  effete 
luxuries  as  the  peer  may  demand,  Bill  Ames  gets 
called  to  California  by  the  sickness  of  his  wife.  He 
feels  mean  about  abandonin'  the  peer,  but  he  don't 
seem  to  have  no  choice,  his  wife  bein'  one  of  them 
women  who  shares  her  bad  health  prett}^  impartially 
round  the  family.  So  Billy  he  departs.  But  before 
he  goes  he  expounds  to  Joplin  Joe,  his  foreman,  the 
nature  of  a  peer  and  how  his  wants  is  apt  to  be 
a  heap  fashionable,  and  that  when  he  asks  for  any 
thing  to  grasp  the  can-opener  and  run  to  the  store 
house — Cacta,  you  put  on  the  coffee! 

"That  peer  arrives  in  the  afternoon,  and  he  never 
makes  a  request  any  more  than  a  corpse.  Beyond 
a  marked  disposition  to  herd  by  himself  and  to 
maintain  the  greatest  possible  distance  between  his 
own  person  and  a  six-shooter,  he  don't  vary  none 
from  the  bulk  of  tender  feet.  At  night,  when  all 
parties  retires,  and  Joplin  Joe  ponders  on  them 
untouched,  effete  luxuries  in  the  store-room,  and 
how  the  can-opener  'ain't  once  been  dimmed  in  the 
cause  of  hospitality,  it  frets  him  considerable,  and  he 
feels  he  ain't  doin'  his  duty  to  the  absent  Billy  Ames. 

196 


MARY'S    FIRST    DAY    IN    CAMP 

"  At  sunrise  he  can  stand  it  no  longer.  He  thun 
ders  on  the  Britisher's  door  with  the  butt  of  his  six- 
shooter,  calling  out: 

'"Peer,  peer,  be  you  awake?' 

''The  peer  allowed  he  was,  though  his  teeth  was 
rattling  like  broken  crockery. 

'"Peer,  would  you  relish  some  "salmon  esplin- 
ade"?' 

"The  peer  allowed  he  wouldn't. 

"'Peer,  would  you  relish  some  " chicken  marine- 
go  "?' 

"The  peer  allowed  he  shore  wouldn't,  and  the 
crockery  rattled  harder  than  ever.  Joplin  Joe  then 
tried  him  on  the  hair-oil  and  the  throat  lozengers, 
the  peer  declining  each  with  thanks. 

"'Peer,'  said  Joplin  Joe,  fair  busting  with  hospi 
tality,  '  is  there  anything  in  this  Gawd's  world  that 
you  do  want?' 

"The  crockery  rattled  an  interlood,  then  Joplin 
Joe  made  out: 

'"Thanks,  very  much.  I  should  like  a  ba-ath  ' — 
Clematis,  you  see  if  them  biscuits  is  brownin'. 

"Joe  he  ran  to  the  store-room,  and  his  eye  en 
countered  a  barrel  of  corned-beef.  He  calls  to  a 
couple  of  cow-punchers,  and  the  first  thing  you 
know  that  late  corned  steer  is  piled  onto  the  prairie 
and  them  cow-punchers  is  hustling  the  empty 
barrel  in  to  the  peer.  Next  they  detaches  the  steps 
from  the  kitchen  door,  ropes  'em  to  the  barrel  and 
introduces  the  peer  to  his  bath.  He's  good  people 
all  right,  and  when  he  sees  they  calls  his  bluff  he 
steps  in  all  right  and  lets  'em  soak  him  a  couple  of 

197 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

buckets.  This  here  move  restores  all  parties  to  a 
mutual  understanding,  and  the  peer  he  bathes  in 
the  corned-beef  barrel  regular  durin'  his  stay — you 
see  the  habit  had  cinched  him." 

Ned  had  shot  an  antelope  a  day  or  two  previous, 
and  antelope  steak,  broiled  over  a  glowing  bed  of 
wood  coals,  with  black  coffee,  stewed  dried  apples, 
and  soda  biscuit  made  up  what  Mary  found  to  be 
an  unexpectedly  palatable  breakfast.  As  camp  did 
not  include  a  cow,  no  milk  or  butter  was  served 
with  meals.  Nevertheless,  the  hungry  tenderfoot 
was  quite  content,  and  missed  none  of  the  appur 
tenances  she  had  been  brought  up  to  believe  essential 
to  a  civilized  meal,  not  even  the  little  silver  jug  that 
Aunt  Martha  always  insisted  came  over  with  William 
the  Conqueror — Aunt  Martha  scorned  the  May 
flower  contingent  as  parvenus. 

The  family  sat  on  the  grass,  tailor  fashion,  and 
every  one  helped  himself  to  what  appetite  prompt 
ed,  in  a  fashion  that  suggested  brilliant  gymnastic 
powers.  To  pass  a  dish  to  any  one,  the  governess 
discovered,  was  construed  as  an  evidence  of  mental 
weakness  and  eccentricity.  The  family  satisfied 
its  appetite  without  assistance  or  amenities,  but 
with  the  skill  of  a  troupe  of  jugglers. 

Breakfast  was  half  over  when  Mrs.  Yellet  laid 
down  her  knife,  which  she  had  handled  throughout 
the  meal  with  masterly  efficiency.  Mary  watched 
her  in  hopeless  embarrassment,  and  wondered  if 
her  own  timid  use  of  a  tin  fork  could  be  construed 
as  an  unfriendly  comment  upon  the  Yelletts'  more 
simple  and  direct  code  of  table  etiquette. 

198 


MARY'S    FIRST    DAY    IN    CAMP 

"  Land's  sakes !  I  just  felt,  all  the  time  we've  been 
eating,  we  was  forgettin'  something.  You  children 
ought  to  remember,  I  got  so  much  on  my  mind." 

All  eyes  turned  anxiously  to  the  cooking-stove, 
while  an  expression  of  frank  regret  began  to  settle 
over  the  different  faces.  The  backbone  of  their  ap 
petites  had  been  broken,  and  there  was  something 
else,  perhaps  something  even  more  appetizing,  to 
come. 

Interpreting  the  trend  of  their  glance  and  ex 
pression,  up  flared  Mrs.  Yellett,  with  as  great  a  show 
of  indignation  as  if  some  one  had  set  a  match  to  her 
petticoats. 

"I  declare,  I  never  see  such  children;  no  more 
nacheral  feelin's  than  a  herd  of  coyotes;  never 
thinks  of  a  plumb  thing  but  grub.  No,  make  no 
mistake  about  the  character  of  the  objec'  we've  for 
got.  'Tain't  sweet  pertaters,  'tain't  molasses,  'tain't 
corn-bread — it's  paw!  It's  your  pore  old  paw — him 
settin'  in  the  tent,  forsook  and  neglected  by  his  own 
children." 

All  started  up  to  remedy  their  filial  neglect  with 
out  loss  of  time,  but  Mrs.  Yellett  waved  them  back 
to  their  places. 

"Don't  the  whole  posse  of  you  go  after  him,  like 
he'd  done  something  and  was  to  be  apprehended. 
Ben,  you  go  after  your  father." 

Ben  strode  over  to  the  little  white  tent  that 
Mary  had  noticed  glimmering  in  the  moonlight 
the  preceding  evening,  and  presently  emerged,  sup 
porting  on  his  arm  a  partially  paralyzed  old  man, 
who  might  have  been  Rip  Van  Winkle  in  the  worst 

199 


JUDITH   OF   THE   PLAINS 

of  tempers.  His  white  hair  and  beard  encircled  a 
shrivelled,  hawklike  face,  the  mouth  was  sucked 
back  in  a  toothless  eddy  that  brought  tip  of  nose 
and  tip  of  chin  into  whispering  distance,  the  eyes 
glittered  from  behind  the  overhanging,  ragged  brows 
like  those  of  a  hungry  animal  searching  through  the 
brush  for  its  prey. 

"  If  you've  done  eatin',"  whispered  Mrs.  Yellett  to 
Miss  Carmichael,  "you'd  better  run  on.  Paw's 
langwidge  is  simply  awful  when  we  forget  to  bring 
him  to  meals."  Mary  ran  on. 

When,  after  the  lapse  of  some  thirty  minutes  or  so, 
the  stentorian  voice  of  Mrs.  Yellett  recalled  Mary  to 
camp,  she  found  that  the  tin  breakfast  service  had 
been  washed  and  returned  to  the  mess-box,  the  beds 
had  been  neatly  folded  and  piled  in  one  of  the  wag 
ons — in  fact,  the  extremely  simple  tent-hold,  to  coin 
a  word,  was  in  absolute  order.  It  was  just  6  A.M., 
and  Mrs.  Yellett  thought  it  high  time  to  begin  school. 
Mary  tried  to  convey  to  her  that  the  hour  was  some 
what  unusual,  but  she  seemed  to  think  that  for  pupils 
who  were  beginning  their  tasks  comparatively  late  in 
life  it  would  be  impossible  to  start  sufficiently  early 
in  the  morning.  So  at  this  young  and  tender  hour, 
with  many  misgivings,  Mary  set  about  preparing  her 
al  fresco  class-room. 

She  chose  a  nice,  flat  little  piece  of  the  United 
States,  situated  in  the  shade  of  the  clump  of  willows 
that  bordered  a  trickling  creek  not  far  from  her 
sylvan  bath-room  of  the  early  morning.  How  she 
was  to  sit  on  the  ground  all  day  and  yet  preserve  a 
properly  pedagogical  demeanor  was  the  first  ques- 

200 


MARY'S   FIRST   DAY    IN    CAMP 

tion  to  be  settled.  That  there  was  nothing  even  re 
motely  resembling  a  chair  in  camp  she  felt  reason 
ably  assured,  as  "paw"  was  sitting  on  an  inverted 
soap-box  under  a  pine-tree,  and  "paw,"  by  reason 
of  age  and  infirmity,  appropriated  all  luxuries.  Mrs. 
Yellett,  with  her  usual  acumen,  grasped  the  situa 
tion. 

"  I'm  figgerin',"  she  commented,  "that  there  must 
be  easier  ways  of  governin'  than  sittin'  up  like  a 
prairie-dog  while  you're  at  it." 

Mrs.  Yellett  took  a  hurried  survey  of  the  camp, 
lessening  the  distance  between  herself  and  one  of 
the  light  wagons  with  a  gait  in  which  grace  was 
entirely  subservient  to  speed;  then,  with  one  capa 
cious  wrench  of  the  arms,  she  loosened  the  spring  seat 
from  the  wagon  and  bore  it  to  the  governess  with  an 
artless  air  of  triumph.  It  was  difficult,  under  these 
circumstances,  to  explain  to  Mrs.  Yellett  that  with 
out  that  symbol  of  scholastic  authority,  a  desk,  the 
wagon  seat  was  useless.  Nevertheless,  Mary  set 
forth,  with  all  her  eloquence,  the  mission  of  a  desk. 
Mrs.  Yellett  was  genuinely  depressed.  Had  she  im 
ported  the  magician  without  his  wand  —  Aladdin 
without  his  lamp?  She  proposed  a  bewildering 
choice — an  inverted  wash-tub,  two  buckets  sustain 
ing  the  relation  of  caryatides  to  a  board,  the  sheet- 
iron  cooking-stove.  In  an  excess  of  solicitude  she 
even  suggested  robbing  "paw"  of  his  soap-box. 

Mary  chose  the  wash-tub  on  condition  that  Mrs. 
Yellett  consented  to  sacrifice  the  handles  in  the 
cause  of  lower  education.  She  felt  that  an  inverted 
tub  that  was  likely  to  see-saw  during  class  hours 

20 1 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

would  tend  rather  to  develop  a  sense  of  humor  in  her 
pupils  than  to  contribute  to  her  pedagogical  dignity. 

The  camp,  as  may  already  have  been  inferred, 
enjoyed  a  matriarchal  form  of  government.  Its 
feminine  dictator  was  no  exception  to  the  race  of 
autocrats  in  that  she  was  not  an  absolute  stranger 
to  the  rosy  byways  of  self-indulgence.  There  was  a 
strenuous  quality  in  her  pleasuring  perhaps  not  in 
consistent  in  one  whose  daily  tasks  included  sheep- 
herding,  ditch  -  digging,  varied  by  irrigating  and 
shearing  in  their  proper  seasons.  Under  the  cir 
cumstances,  it  was  not  surprising  that  her  wash- 
tub  bore  about  the  same  relationship  to  her  real 
duties  as  does  the  crochet  needle  or  embroidery 
hoop  to  the  lives  of  less  arduously  engaged  women. 
It  was  at  once  her  fad  and  her  relaxation,  the  dainty 
feminine  accomplishment  with  which  she  whiled 
away  the  hours  after  a  busy  day  spent  with  pick  and 
shovel.  Of  all  this  Mary  was  ignorant  when  she  pro 
posed  that  Mrs.  Yellett  saw  off  the  tub-handles  in 
the  cause  of  culture.  However,  Mrs.  Yellett  pro 
cured  a  saw,  yet  the  hand  that  held  it  lingered  in 
its  descent  on  the  handles.  She  contemplated  the 
tub  as  affectionately  as  Hamlet  regarding  the  skull 
of.  "Alas,  poor  Yorick!" 

"This,"  she  observed,  "is  the  only  thing  about 
camp  that  reminds  me  I'm  a  woman.  I'd  plumb 
forget  it  many  a  time  if  it  warn't  for  this  little  tub. 
The  identity  of  a  woman  is  mighty  apt  to  get 
mislaid  when  dooty  compels  her  to  assoome  the 
pants  cast  aside  by  the  nacheral  head  of  the  house 
in  sickness  or  death.  It's  ben  six  years  now  since 

202 


MARY'S    FIRST    DAY    IN    CAMP 

paw's  done  a  thing  but  set  'round  and  wait  for 
meals."  Mrs.  Yellett  sighed  laboriously.  "Not 
that  I'm  holdin'  it  agin  him  none.  When  a  man 
sees  eighty,  it's  time  he  bedded  himself  down  com 
fortable  and  waited  for  the  nacheral  course  of  events 
to  weed  him  out.  But  when  the  boys  get  old 
enough  to  tend  to  herdin',  irrigatin',  and  the  work 
that  God  A'mighty  provided  that  man  might  get  the 
chance  to  sweat  hisself  for  bread,  accordin'  to  the 
Scriptures,  I  aim  to  indulge  myself  by  doin'  a  wash 
of  clothes  every  day,  even  if  I  have  to  take  clean 
clothes  and  do  'em  over  again." 

The  poor  "gov'ment's"  tender  heart  could  not 
resist  this  presentation  of  the  case. 

"We  won't  touch  the  handles,  Mrs.  Yellett,"  she 
laughed.  "I'm  glad  you  told  me  you  had  a  per 
sonal  sentiment  for  the  tub.  There  are  some  things 
I  should  feel  the  same  way  about — my  hoe  and  rake, 
foi  instance,  that  I  care  for  my  garden  with,  at 
home.  And  that  suggests  to  me,  why  not  dig  two 
little  trenches  for  the  handles  and  plant  the  tub? 
Then  I  shall  have  an  even  firmer  foundation  on 
which  to  arrange  the — the — the  educational  mis 
cellany." 

The  suggestion  of  this  harmless  expedient  was 
gratefully  received,  and  the  "desk"  duly  implanted, 
whereupon  Mary  pathetically  sought  to  embellish 
her  "  class-room"  from  such  scanty  materials  as  hap 
pened  to  be  at  hand.  A  hemstitched  bureau  scarf 
that  she  had  tucked  in  her  trunk,  in  unquestioning 
faith  in  the  bureau  that  was  to  be  part  of  the 
ranch  equipment,  took  the  "raw  edge,"  as  it  were, 

203 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

off  the  desk.  A  bunch  of  prairie  flowers,  flaming 
cactus  blossoms  in  scarlet  and  yellow,  ox-eyed 
daisies,  white  clematis  from  the  creek,  seemed  none 
the  less  decorative  for  the  tin  cup  that  held  them. 
Mary  grimly  told  herself  that  her  school  was  to 
have  refining  influences,  even  if  it  had  no  furniture. 

The  books,  pencils,  and  paper  arranged  in  decorous 
little  piles,  Miss  Carmichael  announced  to  her 
patroness  that  school  was  ready  to  open.  Mrs. 
Yellett,  who  had  never  heard  that  "a  soft  voice  is 
an  excellent  thing  in  woman,"  and  whose  chest- 
notes  were  not  unlike  those  of  a  Durham  in  sustained 
volume  of  sound,  made  the  valley  of  the  Wind  River 
echo  with  the  summons  of  the  pupils  to  school,  upon 
which  the  teacher  herself  was  overcome  by  the  ab 
surdity  of  the  situation  and  had  barely  time  to  es 
cape  back  of  the  willows,  where  she  laughed  till  she 
cried. 

As  the  pupils  trooped  obediently  to  school,  Mary 
noted  that  they  carried  no  flowers  to  their  dear 
teacher,  but  that  Ben,  the  oldest  pupil,  twenty-one 
years  old,  six  feet  four  inches  in  height  and  deeply 
saturnine  in  manner,  carried  a  six-shooter  in  his 
cartridge-belt.  The  teacher  felt  that  she  was  the 
last  to  deny  a  pupil  any  reasonable  palliative  of  the 
tedium  of  class -hours  —  the  nearness  of  her  own 
school-days  inclined  her  to  leniency  in  this  particu 
lar — but  she  was  hardly  prepared  to  condone  a  six- 
shooter,  and  confided  her  fears  to  Mrs.  Yellett,  who 
received  them  with  the  indulgent  tolerance  a  strong- 
minded  woman  might  extend  to  the  feminine  flutter 
aroused  by  a  mouse.  She  explained  that  Ben  did 

204 


MARY'S    FIRST    DAY    IN    CAMP 

not  shoot  for  "glory,"  but  to  defend  the  herd  from 
the  casual  calls  of  mountain-lions,  bears,  and  coyotes. 
Jack  and  Ned,  who  were  very  nearly  as  tall  as  their 
older  brother,  carried  similar  weapons.  Mary  pray 
ed  that  a  fraternal  spirit  might  dwell  among  her 
pupils. 

The  Misses  Yellett  were  hardly  less  terrifying  than 
their  brothers.  They  had  their  father's  fierce,  hawk 
like  profile,  softened  by  youth,  and  the  appalling 
height  and  robustness  due  to  the  freedom  and  fresh 
air  of  a  nomadic  existence.  Their  costumes  might, 
Mary  thought,  have  been  fashioned  out  of  gunny- 
sacks  by  the  simple  expedient  of  cutting  holes  for 
the  head  and  arms.  The  description  of  the  dress 
worn  by  the  charcoal-burner's  daughter  in  any 
mediaeval  novel  of  modern  construction  would  ap 
proximate  fairly  well  the  school  toilets  of  these 
young  lady  pupils.  The  boys  wore  overalls  and 
flannel  shirts,  which,  in  contrast  tp  the  sketchy 
effects  of  their  sisters'  costumes,  seemed  almost 
modish.  Mrs.  Yellett  then  left  the  "class-room," 
saying  she  must  take  Ben's  place  with  the  sheep. 

The  Brobdingnags,  huge  of  stature,  sinister  of 
aspect,  deeply  distrustful  of  the  rites  in  which  they 
were  about  to  participate,  closed  in  about  their 
teacher.  From  the  pigeon-holes  of  memory  Mary 
drew  forth  the  academic  smile  with  which  a  certain 
teacher  of  hers  had  invariably  opened  school.  The 
pupils  greeted  the  academic  smile  with  obvious 
suspicion.  No  one  smiled  in  camp.  When  any 
thing  according  with  their  conception  of  the  humor 
ous  happened,  they  laughed  uproariously.  Thus, 
14  205 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

early  in  the  morning,  on  his  way  to  breakfast,  Ned 
had  stumbled  over  an  ax  and  severely  cut  his  head. 
Every  one  but  Ned  saw  the  point  of  this  joke  im 
mediately,  and  hearty  guffaws  testified  to  their 
appreciation. 

Miss  Carmichael  took  her  place  behind  the  up 
turned  tub. 

"Will  you  please  be  seated?"  she  said. 

The  class  complied  with  the  instantaneous  pre 
cision  of  automata  newly  greased  and  in  excel 
lent  working  order.  Their  abrupt  obedience  was 
disconcerting.  Some  one  must  have  been  drilling 
them,  thought  their  anxious  teacher,  in  the  art  of 
simultaneous  squatting.  The  temper  of  the  class 
respecting  scholastic  deportment  leaned  towards 
rigidity  bordering  on  self-torture. 

Mary  made  out  a  roll-call,  and  by  unanimous 
consent  it  was  agreed  to  arrange  the  class  as  it  then 
stood,  or  rather  squatted,  with  the  Herculean  Ben 
at  the  top,  and  gradually  diminishing  in  size  till  it 
reached  the  vanishing  point  with  Cacta,  who  was 
ten  and  the  least  terrifying  of  all. 

"And  now,"  ventured  the  teacher,  with  the 
courage  of  a  white  rabbit,  "what  have  you  been  in 
the  habit  of  studying?" 

Absolute  silence  on  the  part  of  the  class,  which 
confronted  its  questioner  straight  as  a  row  of 
bottles,  presenting  faces  imperturbable  as  so  many 
sphinxes. 

Other  questions  met  with  an  equally  disheartening 
response.  Miss  Carmichael  sat  up  straight,  pushed 
back  the  persistent  curls  from  her  face,  and  bent 

206 


MARY'S    FIRST    DAY    IN    CAMP 

every  energy  towards  the  achievement  of  a  "firm" 
demeanor. 

"Clematis,"  said  she,  wisely  selecting  perhaps  the 
least  formidable  of  the  class,  "I  want  you  to  give 
me  some  idea  of  the  kind  of  work  you  have  been 
doing,  so  that  we  may  all  be  able  to  understand  each 
other.  Now,  in  your  mathematics,  for  instance, 
which  of  you  have  finished  with  your  arithmetic, 
and  which — " 

"What  do  you  mean?"  begged  Clematis,  some 
what  tearful. 

"Where  are  you  in  your  arithmetic? 

"Nowhere,  ma'am." 

"Do  you  mean  you  have  never  learned  any?" 
Mary  Carmichael  shuddered  as  she  icily  put  the 
question. 

"Yes,  ma'am." 

"Is  that  the  case  with  all  of  you?" 

Emphatic  nods  left  no  room  for  doubt. 

"Then  we'll  leave  that  for  the  present.  If  you 
will  tell  me,  Clematis,  what  kind  of  work  you  have 
been  doing  in  your  history  and  English,  we  will  get 
to  work  on  those  to-day.  What  books  have  you 
been  using?" 

Not  unnaturally,  Clematis,  who  was  emotional 
and  easily  impressed,  began  to  feel  as  though  she 
were  a  criminal.  She  sobbed  in  a  helpless,  feminine 
way.  Ben  spoke  up,  fearsomely,  from  the  top  of  the 
class. 

"  We  'ain't  got  no  books,"  said  he,  in  grim  rebuke, 
as  though  to  put  an  end  to  a  profitless  discussion. 

"  Do  you  wish  me  to  understand,"  quavered  Mary, 
207 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

"that  you  have  had  no  studies — that  you — can't 
read? — that  you — don't  know — anything?" 

"That's  it,"  said  Ben,  with  the  nearest  approach 
to  cheerfulness  he  had  yet  manifested. 

Meanwhile  there  lay  on  the  teacher's  "desk"  cop 
ies  of  Clodd's  Childhood  of  the  World,  two  of  that 
excellent  series  of  History  Primers,  and  The  Young 
Geologist,  all  carefully  selected,  in  the  fulness  of 
Mary's  ignorance,  for  the  little  pupils  of  her  imagi 
nation.  She  had  brought  no  primer,  as  Mrs.  Yellett's 
letter  had  distinctly  said  that  the  youngest  child 
was  ten  and  that  all  were  comparatively  advanced 
in  their  studies.  More  than  ever  Mary  longed  to 
penetrate  the  mystery  of  that  Irish  linen  decoy,  for 
without  doubt  it  was  to  be  her  melancholy  fate  to 
conduct  this  giant  band  through  the  alphabet! 

Accordingly  she  wrote  out  the  letters  of  the  alpha 
bet  with  large  simplicity  and  a  sublime  renunciation 
of  flourish.  The  class  received  it  tepidly.  Mary 
grew  eloquent  over  its  unswerving  verities.  The 
class  remained  lukewarm.  The  difference  between 
a  and  b  was  a  matter  of  indifference  to  the  house  of 
Yellett.  They  regarded  their  teacher's  strenuous  ef 
forts  to  furnish  a  key  to  the  acquirement  of  the  al 
phabet  with  the  amused  superiority  of  "grown-ups" 
watching  infant  antics  with  pencil  and  paper.  Mean 
while  her  fear  of  the  class  increased  in  proportion  as 
her  ability  to  hold  its  attention  diminished.  The 
backbone  of  the  school  was  plainly  wilting.  The  lit 
tle  scholars,  armed  to  the  teeth,  no  longer  sat  up 
straight  as  tenpins.  After  twenty  -  five  minutes  of 
educational  experience,  satiety  bowled  them  over. 

208 


MARY'S    FIRST    DAY    IN    CAMP 

A  single  glance  had  convinced  Ben  that  the  al 
phabet  was  beneath  contempt.  He  yawned  auto 
matically  at  regular  intervals — long,  dismal  yawns 
that  threatened  to  terminate  in  a  howl,  the  un 
checked,  primitive  type  of  yawn  that  one  hears  ii? 
the  cages  of  the  zoological  gardens  on  a  dull  day 
Miss  Carmichael  raised  interrogatory  eyebrows,  but 
she  might  as  well  have  looked  reproof  at  a  Bengal 
tiger. 

The  class  was  rapidly  promoted  to  c-a-t,  cat;  but 
these  dizzy  intellectual  heights  left  them  cold  and 
dull.  Ben  began  to  clean  his  revolver,  and  on  being 
asked  why  he  did  not  pay  attention  to  his  lessons, 
answered,  briefly: 

"It's  all  d d  foolishness." 

Cacta  and  Clem  were  pulling  each  other's  hair. 
Mary  affected  not  to  see  this  sisterly  exchange  of 
torture.  Ned  whittled  a  stick;  and,  in  chorus,  when 
their  teacher  told  them  that  d-o-g  spelled  dog,  they 
shouted  derision,  and  affirmed  that  they  had  no 
difficulty  in  compelling  the  obedience  of  Stump  even 
without  this  particular  bit  of  erudition.  Though 
Mary  had  always  abhorred  corporal  punishment,  she 
began  to  see  arguments  in  its  favor. 

"With  the  handleless  tub  as  an  elbow-rest  the  teach 
er  took  counsel  with  herself.  Strategy  must  be  em 
ployed  with  the  intellectual  conquest  of  the  Brob- 
dingnags.  Summoning  all  the  pedagogical  dignity 
of  which  she  was  capable,  she  asked: 

"Boys,  don't  you  want  to  know  how  to  read?" 

"Noap,"  responded  the  head  of  the  class. 

"Don't  you  want  to  know  how  to  write?" 
209 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

"Noap." 

"But,  my  dear  boy,  what  would  you  do  if  you 
left  here  and  went  out  into  the  world,  where  every 
one  knows  these  things  and  your  ignorance  would 
be  evident  at  every  turn.  What  would  you  do?" 

"Slug  the  whole  blamed  outfit!" 

Mary  looked  at  her  watch.  School  had  lasted  just 
forty-five  minutes.  Had  time  become  petrified? 


XIV 

JUDITH  ADJUSTS  THE  SITUATION 

MARY  had  been  a  member  of  the  Yellett  house 
hold  for  something  over  a  week,  and  the  in 
tellectual  conquest  of  her  Brobdignag  pupils  seemed 
as  hopeless  as  on  that  first  day.  School  seemed 
to  be  regarded  by  them  as  a  sort  of  neutral  territory, 
admirably  adapted  for  the  settlement  of  long-stand 
ing  grudges,  the  pleasant  exchange  of  practical  jokes, 
peace  and  war  conferences;  also  as  a  mart  of  trade, 
where  fire-anus,  knives,  bear  and  elk  teeth  might 
be  swapped  with  a  greater  expenditure  of  time  and 
conversation  than  under  the  maternal  eye.  "Teach 
er,"  as  she  was  understood  and  accepted  by  the 
house  of  Yellett,  undoubtedly  filled  a  long-felt  want. 
Presiding  over  a  school  of  six-imp  power  for  a  week, 
however,  had  humbled  Mary  to  the  point  of  serious 
ly  considering  a  letter  to  the  home  government, 
meekly  asking  for  return  transportation.  But  this 
was  before  feminine  wile  had  struggled  with  fem 
inine  vanity,  and  feminine  wile  won  the  day. 
School  still  continued  to  open  at  six,  from  which 
early  and  unusual  hour  it  continued,  without  recess 
or  interruption,  till  noon,  when  dinner  pleasantly 

911 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

invaded  the  scholastic  monotony,  to  the  infinite 
relief  of  all  parties  concerned. 

Mary  had  dismissed  her  pupils  a  few  minutes 
before  the  usual  hour,  on  a  particularly  bad  day, 
that  she  might  rally  her  scattered  faculties  and 
present  something  of  a  countenance  to  the  watchful 
eye  of  Mrs.  Yellett.  Every  element  of  humor  had 
vanished  from  the  situation.  The  inverted  tub  was 
no  longer  a  theme  for  merriment  in  her  diary ;  home- 
life  without  a  house  was  no  longer  a  diverting 
epigram;  she  had  closed  her  eyes  that  she  might 
not  see  the  mountains  in  all  their  grandeur.  In  her 
present  mood  of  abject  homesickness  the  white- 
capped  peaks  were  part  and  parcel  of  the  affront. 
With  head  sunk  in  the  palms  of  her  hands,  and 
elbows  resting  011  the  inverted  tub,  Mary  presented 
a  picture  of  woe,  in  which  the  wicked  element  of 
comedy  was  not  wholly  lacking.  Looking  up  sud 
denly,  she  saw  Judith  Rodney  advancing.  The 
first  glimpse  of  her  put  Mary  in  a  more  rational 
mood. 

''I'm  so  glad  to  see  you!  Behold  my  class 
room  appointments!  They  may  seem  a  trifle  novel, 
but,  for  that  matter,  so  are  my  pupils,"  began  Mary, 
determining  to  present  the  same  front  to  Judith 
that  she  had  to  Mrs.  Yellett.  But  Judith  was  not 
to  be  put  off.  She  looked  into  Mary's  eyes  and 
did  not  relax  her  gaze  until  she  was  rewarded  with 
an  answering  twinkle.  Then  Mary  laughed  long 
and  merrily,  the  first  good,  hearty  laugh  since  the 
beginning  of  her  teaching. 

"Tell  me,"  Mary  broke   out,   suddenly,   "or  the 

3J2 


JUDITH    ADJUSTS    THE    SITUATION 

suspense  will  kill  me,  who  wrote  that  lovely  letter- — 
on  such  good  quality  Irish  linen,  too?  Snob  that 
I  was,  it  was  the  letter  that  did  it." 

"So  you  have  your  suspicions  that  it  was  not  a 
home  product?" 

"You  didn't  do  it,  did  you?" 

"Oh  no;  though  I  was  asked,  and  so  was  Miss 
Wetmore,  I  believe.  Of  course  poor  Mrs.  Yellett 
had  no  other  recourse,  as  I  suppose  you  know.  I 
chose  to  be  disobliging  that  time,  and  was  sorry 
for  it  afterwards — sorry  when  I  heard  about  the 
letter  that  really  went!  Do  you  find  the  sheep- 
wagon  so  very  dreadful?" 

"I  thought,"  laughed  Mary,  "that  it  was  going 
to  be  like  a  picture  I  saw  in  a  magazine,  Mexican 
hammocks,  grass  cushions,  and  a  lady  pouring  tea 
from  a  samovar;  instead  it  was  the  sheep-wagon 
and  'Do  you  sleep  light  or  dark?'  There  is  Mrs. 
Yellett  calling  us  to  dinner.  Shall  I  have  a  chance 
to  talk  to  you  alone  afterwards?" 

"I've  come  all  the  way  from  Dax's  to  see  you," 
explained  Judith,  with  characteristic  directness. 
"We  have  all  the  afternoon." 

"Really!"  Mary  displayed  a  flash  of  school -girl 
enthusiasm.  "I  feel  as  if  I  could  almost  bear  the 
scenery." 

Presumably  Judith  was  a  favorite  guest  of  the 
Yellett  household,  and  not  without  reason.  She 
took  her  place  in  the  circle  about  the  homely, 
steaming  fare,  with  an  ease  and  grace  that  sug 
gested  that  dining  off  the  ground  was  an  every-day 
affair  with  her,  and  chairs  and  tables  undreamed- 

213 


JUDITH   OF   THE    PLAINS 

of  luxuries.  Mary  envied  her  ready  tact.  Why 
could  she  not  meet  these  people  with  Judith's 
poise  —  bring  out  the  best  of  them,  as  she  did? 
The  boys  talked  readily  and  naturally — there  was 
even  a  flavor  to  what  they  said.  As  for  herself, 
try  never  so  conscientiously  and  she  would  be 
confronted  by  frank  amusement  or  shy  distrust. 
Even  "paw"  beamed  at  Judith  appreciatively  as 
he  consumed  his  meal  with  infinite,  toothless  la 
bor.  The  Spartan  family  became  almost  sprightly 
under  the  pleasantly  stimulating  influence  of  its 
guest. 

"What  kind  of  basques  are  they  wearing  this 
summer,  Judy?"  inquired  Mrs.  Yellett,  regarding 
her  guest's  trim  shirt-waist  judicially.  "I  reckon 
them  loose,  meal-sack  things  must  be  all  the  go 
since  you  and  Miss  Mary  both  have  'em;  but  give 
me  a  good,  tight-fittin'  basque,  every  time.  How's 
any  one  to  know  whether  you  got  a  figure  or  not, 
in  a  thing  that  never  hits  you  anywhere?"  ques 
tioned  the  matriarch,  not  without  a  touch  of  pride 
anent  her  own  fine  proportions. 

"You  really  ought  to  have  a  shirt-waist,  Mrs. 
Yellett.  You've  no  idea  of  the  comfort  of  them, 
till  you've  worn  them." 

"I  don't  see  but  I'll  have  to  come  to  it."  Her 
tone  was  frankly  regretful,  as  one  who  feels  obliged 
to  follow  the  behests  of  fashion,  yet,  in  so  doing, 
sacrifices  a  cherished  ideal.  Mary  Carmichael  choked 
over  her  coffee  in  an  abortive  attempt  to  restrain 
her  audible  hilarity.  Judith,  without  a  trace  of 
amusement,  was  discussing  materials,  cut,  and 

214 


JUDITH    ADJUSTS    THE    SITUATION 

buttons;  the  plainswoman  had  proved  herself  the 
better  gentlewoman  of  the  two. 

"Get  me  a  spotty  calico,  white,  with  a  red  dot, 
will  you,  the  next  time  you're  over  to  Ervay? 
Buttons  accordin'  to  your  judgment;  but  if  you 
could  get  some  white  chiny  with  a  red  ring,  I  think 
they'd  match  it  handsome."  She  frowned  reflec 
tively.  "You're  sure  one  of  them  loose,  hangy 
things  'd  become  me?  Then  you  can  bring  it  over 
Tuesday,  when  you  come  to  the  hunt." 

"What  hunt?"  asked  Judith,  in  all  simplicity. 

"Why,  the  wolf -hunt.  Peter  Hamilton  come 
here  three  days  ago  and  made  arrangements  for  'em 
all  to  have  supper  here  after  it  was  done.  'Lowed 
there  was  a  young  Eastern  lady  in  the  party,  Miss 
Colebrooke,  who  couldn't  wait  to  meet  me.  Course 
you're  goin',  Judy?  You've  plumb  forgot  it,  or 
somethin'  happened  to  the  messenger.  Who  ever 
hyeard  tell  of  anythin'  happenin'  in  this  yere  county 
'thout  you  bein'  the  very  axle  of  it?" 

Judith  had  not  betrayed  her  chagrin  by  the  least 
change  of  countenance.  To  the  most  searching 
glance  every  faculty  was  intent  on  the  shirt-waist 
with  the  ringed  buttons.  Yet  both  women  felt — 
by  a  species  of  telepathy  wholly  feminine — that 
Judith  was  deeply  wounded.  Loyal  Sarah  Yellett 
decided  that  Hamilton's  guests  would  get  but  a 
scant  supper  from  her  if  her  friend  Judith  was  to  be 
unfavored  with  an  invitation,  while  Judith,  in  her 
own  warm  heart,  resented  as  deeply  as  Peter's 
slight  of  herself,  his  tale  of  Miss  Colebrooke's  im 
patience  to  meet  Mrs.  Yellett.  The  matriarch's 

215 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

dominant  personality  evoked  many  a  smile  even 
from  those  most  deeply  conscious  of  her  worth; 
but  it  wasn't  like  Peter  to  make  a  spectacle  of  his 
ruggedly  honest  neighbor.  Nevertheless  she  re 
marked,  coolly: 

"  I  sha'n't  be  able  to  bring  your  shirt-waist  things 
up  Tuesday,  I'm  afraid,  Mrs.  Yellett,  but  I'll  try  to 
bring  them  towards  the  end  of  the  week."  Then, 
with  a  swift  change  of  subject,  "How  are  the 
boys  getting  on  with  their  education,  Miss  Carmi- 
chael?" 

The  boys  looked  at  Mary  out  of  the  corners  of 
their  eyes.  Their  prowess  in  the  field  of  letters 
had  not  been  publicly  discussed  before.  Mary 
Carmichael,  emboldened  by  Judith's  presence,  look 
ed  at  her  tormentors  with  a  judicious  glance. 

"The  girls  are  doing  fairly  well,"  she  replied, 
suppressing  the  mischief  in  her  eyes,  "but  the  boys, 
poor  fellows,  I  think  something  must  be  the  matter 
with  them.  Did  they  ever  fall  on  their  heads  when 
they  were  babies,  Mrs.  Yellett?" 

"Not  more  than  common.  All  babies  fall  on 
their  heads;  it's  as  common  as  colic." 

"Poor  boys!"  said  Mary,  with  a  manner  that  sug 
gested  they  were  miles  away,  rather  than  within  a 
few  feet  of  her.  "  Poor  boys!  I've  never  seen  any 
thing  like  it.  They  try  so  hard,  too,  yet  they  can 
make  nothing  of  work  that  would  be  play  for  a 
child  of  three.  They  must  have  fallen  on  their 
heads  harder  than  you  supposed,  Mrs.  Yellett." 

"Perhaps  their  skulls  were  a  heap  frailer  than  I 
allowed  for  at  the  time,"  said  Mrs.  Yellett,  with 

216 


JUDITH    ADJUSTS    THE    SITUATION 

similar  remoteness,  yet  with  a  twinkle  that  showed 
Mary  she  understood  the  situation. 

"An  infant's  skull  doesn't  stand  much  knocking 
about,  I  suppose,  Mrs.  Yellett?" 

"Not  a  great  deal,  if  there  ain't  plenty  of  vinegar 
and  brown  paper  handy,  and  I  seldom  had  such 
fancy  fixings  in  camp.  It's  too  bad  my  boys  should 
be  dumb  'n  account  of  a  little  thing  like  vinegar  and 
brown  paper." 

"Maw,  they  be  dumb  as  Injuns,"  declared  Cacta, 
preening  herself,  while  the  Messrs.  Yellett  reapplied 
themselves  to  their  dinner  with  ostentatious  interest. 

"Well,  well!"  said  Mrs.  Yellett;  "it  be  a  hard 
blow  to  me  to  know  that  my  sons  are  lackings; 
there's  mothers  I  know  as  would  give  vent  to  their 
disapp'inted  ambition  in  ways  I'd  consider  crool  to 
the  absent-minded.  Now  hearken,  the  whole  outfit 
of  you!  Any  offspring  of  mine  now  present  and 
forever  after  holding  his  peace,  who  proves  feeble 
minded  by  the  end  of  the  coming  week,  takes  over 
all  the  work,  labor,  and  chores  of  such  offspring  as 
demonstrates  himself  in  full  possession  of  his 
faculties,  the  matter  to  be  reported  on  by  the 
gov'ment." 

No  sovereign,  issuing  a  proclamation  of  war, 
could  have  assumed  a  more  formidable  mien  than 
Mrs.  Yellett,  squatting  erect  on  the  prairie,  crowned 
by  her  rabbit-skin  cap.  Mary  and  Judith,  with 
bland,  impassive  expressions,  noted  the  effect  of  the 
mandate.  There  was  not  the  faintest  symptom  of 
rebellion;  each  Brobdingnag  accepted  the  matri 
arch's  edict  without  a  murmur. 

2*7 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

With  an  air  of  further  meditation  on  the  efficacy 
of  brown  paper  and  vinegar  at  the  crucial  moment, 
Mrs.  Yellett  suddenly  observed: 

"The  lacking,  like  the  dog,  may  be  taught  to 
fetch  and  carry  a  book;  but  to  learn  it  he  is  unable." 

"Maw,  does  it  say  that  in  the  Book  of  Hiram?" 
asked  Clematis. 

"  It  says  that,  an'  more,  too.  It  says,  '  The  words 
of  the  wise  are  an  expense,  but  the  lovin'  parent 
don't  grudge  'em.' " 

Mary  Carmichael  had  noticed,  as  her  alien  pres 
ence  came  to  be  less  of  a  check  on  Mrs.  Yellett 's 
natural  medium  of  expression,  that  she  was  much 
addicted  to  a  species  of  quotation  with  which  she 
impartially  adorned  her  conversation,  pointed  family 
morals,  or  administered  an  occasional  reproof.  These 
family  aphorisms  were  sometimes  semi -legal,  some 
times  semi  -  scriptural  in  turn  of  phrase,  and  built 
on  a  foundation  of  homely  philosophy.  They  were 
ascribed  to  the  "Book  of  Hiram"  and  never  failed 
of  salutary  effect  in  the  family  circle.  But  the  apt 
quotations  that  she  had  just  heard  piqued  Mary's 
curiosity  more  than  before. 

"Do  you  happen  to  have  a  copy  of  the  Book 
of  Hiram,  Mrs.  Yellett?"  she  asked,  in  all  innocence, 
supposing  that  the  homely  apothegms  were  to  be 
found  at  the  back  of  some  patent-medicine  alma 
nac.  Judith  Rodney  listened  in  wonder.  The  ques 
tion  had  never  before  been  asked  in  her  hearing. 

"I  lost  mine."  Mrs.  Yellett  folded  her  arms  and 
looked  at  her  questioner  with  something  of  a 
challenging  mien. 

2x8 


JUDITH    ADJUSTS    THE    SITUATION 

"What  a  pity!  I've  been  so  interested  in  the 
quotations  I've  heard  you  make  from  it." 

"What's  the  matter  with  'em?"  she  demanded, 
pride  and  apprehension  equally  commingled. 

Judith  Rodney  rushed  to  the  rescue : 

"Nothing  is  the  matter  with  them,  Mrs.  Yellett," 
she  said,  with  her  disarming  smile,  "except  that 
there  is  not  quite  enough  to  go  around." 

The  matriarch  had  the  air  of  gathering  herself  to 
gether  for  something  really  worth  while.  Then  she 
tossed  off: 

"''Tain't  always  the  quality  of  the  grub  that 
confers  the  flavor,  but  sometimes  the  scarcity 
thereof/ ' 

Perhaps  it  has  been  the  good-fortune  of  some  of 
us  to  say  a  word  of  praise  to  an  author,  while  un 
conscious  of  his  relationship  to  the  book  praised. 
Mark  the  genial  glow  radiating  from  every  feature 
of  our  auditor!  How  we  feel  ourselves  anointed 
with  his  approval,  our  good  taste  and  critical  faculty 
how  commended!  It  is  a  luxury  that  goes  a  long 
way  towards  mitigating  the  discomfitures  caused  by 
the  reverse  of  this  unctuous  blunder. 

"The  Book  of  Hiram,"  said  Mrs.  Yellett,  angling 
for  time,  "is  a  book  —  it  do  surprise  me  that  it  es 
capes  your  notice  back  East.  You  ever  heard  tell 
of  the  Book  of  Mormon?" 

Mary  assented. 

"Well,  the  Book  of  Hiram  is  like  the  Book  of 
Mormon,  only  a  heap  more  undefiled.  The  young 
est  child  can  read  it  without  asking  a  single  embar 
rassing  qiieslion  of  its  elder,  and  the  oldest  sinner 

219 


JUDITH    OP    THE    PLAINS 

can  read  it  without  having  any  fleshly  meditations 
intrudin'  on  his  piety." 

The  Yellett  family  had  by  this  time  dispersed 
itself  for  the  afternoon,  and  the  matriarch  and  the 
two  girls  started  in  to  clear  away  the  meal  and  wash 
the  dishes. 

"That's  the  kind  of  book  for  me,"  continued 
Mrs.  Yellett,  vigorously  swishing  about  in  the  soapy 
water.  "Story-books  don't  count  none  with  me 
these  days.  It's  my  opinion  that  things  are  snarled 
up  a  whole  lot  too  much  in  real  life  without  pestering 
over  the  anguish  of  print  folks.  Flesh  and  blood  suf 
fering  goes  without  a  groan  of  sympathy  from  the 
on-lookers,  while  novel  characters  wade  to  the  neck 
in  compassion.  I've  pondered  on  that  a  whole  lot, 
seein'  a  heap  of  indifference  to  every-day  calamity, 
and  the  way  I  assay  it  is  like  this:  print  folks  has 
terrible  fanciful  layouts  given  to  their  griefs  and 
worriments  by  the  authors  of  their  being.  The  trim 
mings  to  their  troubles  is  mighty  attractive.  Don't 
you  reckon  I'd  be  willin'  to  have  a  spell  of  trouble 
if  I  had  a  sweeping  black  velvet  dress  to  do  it  in? 
Yes,  indeed,  I'd  be  willin'  to  turn  a  few  of  them 
shades  of  anguish,  'gray  's  ashes,'  'pale  as  death,' 
and  so  on,  if  they'd  give  me  the  dress  novel  ladies 
seems  to  have  for  them  special  occasions." 

"  But  you  used  to  like  novels,  you  know  you  did, 
Mrs.  Yellett,"  observed  Judith  Rodney. 

"Yes,  I  didn't  always  entertain  these  views  con- 
cernin'  romance.  You  wouldn't  believe  it,  but  there 
was  a  time  when  I  just  nacherally  went  careerin' 
round  enveloped  in  fantasies.  I  was  young  then— 

220 


JUDITH    ADJUSTS    THE    SITUATION 

just  about  the  time  I  married  paw.  Every  novel 
that  was  read  to  me,  I  mean  that  I  read"  —  Mrs. 
Yellett  blushed  a  deep  copper  color  through  her 
many  coats  of  tan — "convinced  me  that  I  was  the 
heroine  thereof.  And,  nacherally,  I  turned  over  to 
paw  the  feachers  and  characteristics  of  the  hero  in 
said  book  I  happened  to  be  enjoyin'  at  the  time. 
Paw  never  knew  it,  but  sometimes  he  was  a  dook, 
and  it  was  plumb  hard  work.  Just  about  as  hard 
as  ropin'  a  mountain  -  lion  an'  sayin',  'remember, 
you  are  a  sheep  from  this  time  henceforth,  and 
trim  your  action  accordin'.'  I'd  say  to  paw,  'Let's 
walk  together  in  the  gloaming,  here  in  this  desert 
ed  garden';  and  paw  would  say,  'Name  o'  Gawd, 
woman,  have  you  lost  your  mind?  It's  plumb  three 
hundred  and  fifty  miles  to  the  Tivoli  beer-garden  in 
Cheyenne,  and  it  ain't  deserted,  either!' 

"Then  I'd  wring  my  hands  in  anguish,  same  as 
the  Lady  Mary,  an'  paw  would  declare  I  was  locoed. 
He  seemed  a  heap  more  nacheral  when  I  pretended 
he  was  '  Black  Ranger,  the  Pirate  King. '  His  lan 
guage  came  in  handy,  and  his  cartridge-belt  and 
pistol  all  came  in  Black  Ranger's  outfit.  Yes,  it 
was  a  heap  easier  playing  he  was  a  pirate  than  a 
dook.  All  this  happened  back  to  Salt  Lake,  where 
me  an'  paw  was  married." 

Mrs.  Yellett  looked  towards  the  mountain-range 
that  separated  her  from  the  Mormon  country,  and 
her  listeners  realized  that  she  was  verging  perilously 
close  to  confidences.  Mary  Carmichael,  who  dread 
ed  missing  any  detail  of  the  chronicle  that  dealt  with 
paw  in  the  role  of  apocryphal  duke,  hastened  to  say: 
15  221 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

"And  you  lost  your  taste  for  romance,  finally?" 

"In  Salt  Lake  I  was  left  to  myself  a  whole  lot — 
there  was  reasons  why  I  didn't  mingle  with  the  Mor 
mon  herd.  Paw  was  mighty  attentive  to  me,  but 
them  was  troublous  times  for  paw.  I  pastures  my 
self  with  the  fleetin'  figures  of  romance  the  endoorin' 
time  and  enjoys  myself  a  heap.  When  paw  wasn't 
a  dook  or  a  pirate  king,  unbeknownst  to  himself,  like 
as  not  he  was  Sir  Marmaduke  Trevelyun,  or  somebody 
entitled  to  the  same  amount  of  dog. 

14  'Bout  this  time  a  little  stranger  was  due  in  our 
midst,  and  the  woman  who  came  to  take  care  of  me 
was  plumb  locoed  over  novels,  same  as  me,  only 
worse.  She  just  hungered  for  'em,  same  as  if  she 
had  a  longin'  for  something  out  of  season.  She 
brought  a  batch  of  them  with  her  in  her  trunk,  we 
borrowed  her  a  lot  more,  some  I  don't  know  how 
she  come  by.  But  they  didn't  have  no  effect;  it 
was  like  feedin'  an'  Injun  —  you  couldn't  strike 
bottom.  She  read  out  of  'em  to  me  with  disastrous 
results  happenin',  an'  that  cured  me.  The  brand 
on  this  here  book  that  effected  my  change  of  heart 
was  The  Bride  of  the  Tomb.  I  forget  the  name  of 
the  girl  in  that  romance,  but  she  was  in  hard  luck 
from  the  start.  She  couldn't  head  off  the  man 
pursooin'  her,  any  way  she  turned.  She'd  wheel 
out  of  his  way  cl'ar  across  country,  but  he'd  land 
thar  fust  an'  wait  for  her,  a  smile  on  his  satanine 
feachers. 

41 1  got  so  wrought  up  along  o'  that  book,  an'  wor 
ried  as  to  the  outcome,  'most  as  bad  as  the  girl.  Think 
of  it !  An*  me  with  only  three  baby-shirts  an'  a  flannel 

222 


JUDITH    ADJUSTS   THE    SITUATION 

petticoat  made  at  the  time!  Seemed  's  if  I  couldn't 
hustle  my  meals  fast  enough,  I  just  hankered  so 
to  know  what  was  goin'  to  happen  next!  I  plumb 
detested  the  man  with  the  handsome  feachers,  same 
as  the  girl.  Me  an'  her  felt  precisely  alike  about 
him.  And  when  he  shut  her  up  in  the  family  vault 
I  just  giv'  up  an'  was  took  then  an'  there,  an*  me 
without  so  much  as  finishin'  the  flannel  petticoat! 
I  never  could  endure  the  sight  of  a  novel  since. 
Perhaps  that's  why  Ben  is  so  dumb  about  his  books 
— just  holds  a  nacheral  grudge  against  'em  along  of 
my  havin'  to  borrow  slips  for  him." 

"Has  the  Book  of  Hiram  anything  to  say  against 
the  habit  of  novel  reading,  Mrs.  Yellett?"  inquired 
Judith,  demurely. 

She  paused  for  a  moment.  "It's  mighty  in 
convenient  that  I  should  have  mislaid  that  book, 
but  rounding  up  my  recollections  of  it,  I  recall 
something  like  this:  'Romance  is  the  loco-weed 
of  humanity.'" 

"So  you  don't  approve  of  the  Mormon  Bible?" 
ventured  Mary. 

"I  jest  nacherally  execrates  Mormonism,  spoken, 
printed,  or  in  action,"  she  said,  with  an  emphasis 
that  suggested  the  subject  had  a  strong  personal 
bearing.  "I  recall  a  text  from  the  Book  of  Hiram 
touching  on  Mormon  deportment  in  particklar  an* 
human  nature  at  large.  It  says,  'Where  several 
women  and  one  man  are  gathered  together  for  the 
purpose  of  serving  the  Lord,  the  man  gets  the  bulk 
of  the  service." 

She  broke  off  suddenly,  as  if  she  feared  she  had 
223 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

said  too  much.  "Judy,"  she  demanded,  "is  Mis' 
Dax  busy  with  Leander  now?" 

"Not  more  than  usual,"  smiled  Judith. 

"Jest  tell  her  for  me,  will  you,  that  I  want  to  hire 
her  husband  to  do  some  herdin' ;  Leander's  handy, 
'n'  can  work  good  an'  sharp,  if  he  is  an  infidel.  An' 
I  like  to  have  him  over  now  an'  then,  as  you  know, 
Judy.  As  the  Book  of  Hiram  says,  'It's  neighborly 
to  ease  the  check-rein  of  a  gentled  husband.'  But 
you  tell  him  I  don't  want  to  hear  any  of  his  ever- 
lastin'  fool  argufyin'  'bout  religion.  Leander  'd  stop 
in  the  middle  of  shearin'  a  sheep  to  argue  that 
Jonah  never  came  out  o'  the  whale's  belly.  I  ain't 
no  use  for  infidels,  'less  they're  muzzled,  which 
Leander  mos'  generally  is." 

With  the  feeling  that  there  was  an  excellent 
though  unspoken  understanding  between  them,  the 
two  girls  walked  together  to  the  top  of  the  path 
that  wandered  away  from  camp  towards  a  bluff 
overlooking  wave  after  wave  of  foot-hills,  lying  blue 
and  still  like  a  petrified  sea. 

"I'm  still  dying  to  know  who  wrote  that  letter," 
begged  Mary. 

"It  was  written  by  a  lady  who  is  very  anxious  to 
return  to  Washington,  and  she  took  that  means  of 
getting  one  more  vote.  Her  husband  is  going  to  run 
for  the  Senate  next  term.  We  hear  a  good  deal  of 
that  side  of  politics,  you  know." 

"It  was  certainly  convincing,"  remarked  the 
victim  of  the  letter.  "My  aunts  detected  many 
virtues  in  the  handwriting." 

"But  now  that  you  are  really  here,  isn't  it  splen- 
224 


JUDITH  ADJUSTS   THE   SITUATION 

did?  Mountains  are  such  good  neighbors.  They 
give  you  their  great  company  and  yet  leave  you 
your  own  little  reservations." 

"  But  I  fear  I  can  never  feel  at  home  out-of-doors," 
Mary  announced,  with  such  a  rueful  expression  that 
they  both  smiled. 

"Perhaps,  then,  it  depends  on  the  frame  of  mind. 
I've  had  longer  than  you  to  cultivate  it." 

Mary  looked  towards  the  mountains,  serene  in 
their  strength.  "Awesome  as  they  are,"  she  laugh 
ed,  "they  don't  frighten  me  nearly  as  much  as  Ben 
and  Ned.  They  are  really  very  difficile,  my  pupils, 
and  I  feel  so  ridiculous  sitting  up  back  of  that  tub, 
teaching  them  letters  and  the  spelling  of  foolish 
words,  when  they  know  things  I've  never  dreamed 
of.  The  other  day,  out  of  a  few  scratches  in  the 
dust  that  I  should  never  have  given  a  second  glance, 
one  of  them  made  out  that  some  one's  horses  had 
broken  the  corral  and  one  was  trailing  a  rope. 
Whereupon  my  pupil  got  on  a  horse,  went  in  search 
of  the  strays,  and  returned  them  to  men  going  to  a 
round-up.  After  that,  the  spelling  of  cat  didn't 
seem  quite  so  much  of  an  achievement  as  it  had 
before." 

"  But  they  need  the  spelling  of  cat  so  much  more 
than  you  need  to  understand  trail  -  marks.  Why 
don't  you  try  a  little  strategy  with  them?  Perhaps 
a  bribe,  even?  It  seems  to  me  I  remember  some 
thing  in  history  about  the  part  played  in  colonization 
by  the  bright-colored  bead." 

Sundry  wood-cuts  from  a  long-forgotten  primer 
history  of  the  United  States  came  back  to  Mary. 

225 


JUDITH  OF  THE  PLAINS 

In  that  tear-stained,  dog-eared  volume,  all  explorers, 
from  Columbus  down  to  Lewis  and  Clarke,  were 
unfailingly  depicted  in  the  attitude  of  salesmen  dis 
playing  squares  of  cloth  to  savages  apparently  in 
urgent  need  of  them. 

"How  stupid  of  me  not  to  remember  Father 
Marquette  concluding  negotiations  with  a  neck 
lace!" 

"Frankly  plagiarize  the  terms  of  your  treaty 
from  Pere  Marquette,  and  there  you  are!" 

"You  are  so  splendid!"  said  Mary,  impulsively, 
remembering  Judith's  own  sorrows  and  the  smiling 
fortitude  with  which  she  kept  them  hidden.  "You 
make  me  feel  like  a  horrid  little  girl  that  has  been 
whining." 

Judith  looked  towards  the  mountains  a  long  time 
without  speaking. 

"When  you  know  them  well,  they  whisper  great 
things  that  little  folk  can't  take  away." 

She  turned  back  towards  camp,  walking  lightly, 
with  head  thrown  back.  Mary  watched  her.  Yes, 
the  mountains  might  have  admitted  her  to  their 
company. 


XV 

THE   WOLF-HUNT 

JUDITH  awakened  with  all  the  starry  infinitude 
of  sky  for  a  canopy.  In  the  distance  loomed  the 
foot-hills,  watchful  sentinels  of  her  slumbers;  and, 
sloping  gently  away  from  them,  rolled  the  plain,  like 
some  smooth,  dark  sea  flowing  deep  and  silently. 
Judith,  a  solitary  figure  adrift  in  that  still  ocean  of 
space,  sat  up  and  watched  the  stars  fade  and  saw 
the  young  day  peer  timorously  at  the  world  that  lay 
before  it.  Her  mind,  refreshed  by  long  hours  of 
dreamless  sleep,  turned  to  the  problem  of  impend 
ing  things,  serenely  contemplative.  The  passing  of 
many  mornings  and  many  peoples  had  the  moun 
tains  seen  as  the  wreathed  mists  came  and  went 
about  their  brows,  and  to  all  who  knew  the  value  of 
the  gift  they  gave  their  great  company,  and  to  such 
as  could  hear,  they  told  their  great  secrets.  Judith's 
prayer  was  an  outflowing  of  soul  to  the  great  forces 
about  her,  a  wish  to  be  in  harmony  with  them,  to 
remember  her  kinship,  to  keep  some  measure  of 
their  serenity  in  the  press  of  burdens.  The  way 
of  the  Indian  was  ever  her  way  when  circumstance 
raised  no  barriers;  the  four  walls  of  a  house  were 
a  prison  to  her  after  the  days  lengthened  and  the 

227 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

summer  nights  grew  warm.  To  the  infinite  disap 
proval  of  that  custodian  of  propriety,  Mrs.  Dax,  she 
would  make  her  bed  beneath  the  stars,  night  after 
night,  and  bathe  in  the  cold,  clear  waters  of  the 
stream  that  purled  from  the  white-capped  crest  of 
the  mountains. 

"Nasty  Injun  ways!"  scoffed  Leander's  master 
ful  lady,  consciously  superior  from  the  intrench- 
ment  of  her  stuffy  bedroom,  that  boasted  crochet- 
work  on  the  backs  of  the  chairs  and  a  scant  lace 
curtain  at  its  solitary  window. 

Judith,  going  to  her  favorite  pool  to  bathe,  saw 
that  it  had  shrunk  till  it  seemed  but  a  fairy  well  hid 
among  the  willows.  A  quarter  of  a  mile  above  was 
another  pool,  hidden  like  a  jewel  in  its  case  of  green, 
broidered  with  scarlet  roseberries  and  white  clematis ; 
and  towards  this  she  bent  her  steps,  as  time  was 
a-plenty  that  morning.  She  kept  to  the  stones  of  the 
creek  for  a  pathway,  jumping  lightly  from  those 
that  were  moss-grown  to  those  that  hid  their  naked 
ness  in  the  dark,  velvet  shadows  of  early  morning, 
her  white  feet  touching  the  shallow  stream  like  pale 
gulls  that  dipped  and  skimmed.  "Diana's  Pool," 
as  she  called  it,  was  always  clear.  It  lay  half  hid 
beneath  a  shelving  rock,  a  fount  for  the  tiny,  white 
fall  that  crooned  and  sang  as  it  fell.  And  here 
she  bathed,  as  the  east  flamed  where  the  mountains 
blackened  against  it.  Gold  halos  tipped  the  clouds, 
that  melted  presently  into  fiery  waves,  then  burst 
into  one  great  aureole  through  which  the  sun  rode 
triumphant,  and  it  was  day. 

She  had  kept  post-office  the  day  before,  and  it 
228 


THE    WOLF-HUNT 

would  not  be  till  day  after  to  -  morrow  that  the 
squires  of  the  lariat  would  come  again  to  offer  their 
hearts,  their  worldly  goods,  their  complete  reforma 
tion,  if  she  would  only  change  her  mind.  It  was  all 
such  an  old  story  that  she  had  grown  to  regard 
them  with  a  tenderness  almost  maternal.  But  to 
day  was  all  her  own,  and  the  spirit  of  adventure 
swelled  high  in  her  bosom  as  she  thought  of  what 
she  had  planned.  It  was  warm  and  close  and  still 
in  the  Dax  house  as  Judith  made  her  way  softly  to 
her  own  room  and  began  her  preparations  for  the 
long  journey  she  was  to  take  afoot.  To  walk  in 
the  abominations  devised  by  the  white  man  for 
the  purpose  of  cramping  his  feet  would  have  been 
a  serious  handicap  to  Judith.  The  twenty  miles 
that  she  would  walk  before  nightfall  was  no  very 
great  undertaking  to  her,  but  it  was  part  of  her 
primitive  directness  to  accomplish  it  with  as  little  ex 
penditure  of  fatigue  and  comfort  as  possible.  More 
over,  who  could  steal  through  the  forest  in  those 
heeled  things  without  announcing  his  coming  and 
frightening  the  forest  folk,  and  sending  them  skur- 
rying?  And  Judith  loved  to  surprise  them  and 
see  them  busy  with  their  affairs — to  creep  along 
in  her  soft,  elk  -  hide  moccasins  and  catch  their 
watchful  eyes  and  see  the  things  that  were  not  for 
the  heavy-booted  white  man. 

She  might  have  inspired  Kitty  Colebrooke  to  a 
sonnet  as  she  stepped  out  into  the  glad  morning 
light,  in  short  skirt  and  jacket,  green-clad  as  the 
pines  that  girdled  the  mountains,  with  a  knapsack 
with  rations  of  bread  and  meat  and  the  wherewithal 

329 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

to  build  a  fire  should  she  wander  belated.  She 
softly  closed  the  door,  not  to  awaken  Leander  and 
his  slumbering  lady,  and  broke  into  the  running  gait 
that  the  Indians  use  on  their  all-day  journeys,  the 
elk-hide  moccasins  falling  soft  as  snow-flakes  on  the 
trail.  Dolly  she  missed  chiefly  for  her  companion 
ship,  for  Judith  had  not  the  white  man's  utter  help 
lessness  without  a  horse  in  this  country  of  high 
altitudes.  When  she  walked  she  breathed,  carried 
herself,  covered  ground  like  her  mother's  people, 
and  loved  the  inspiration  of  it. 

The  eerie  shadows  of  the  desert  drew  back  and 
hid  themselves  in  the  mountains.  The  day  began 
with  splendid  promise — the  day  of  the  wolf -hunt, 
of  which  no  word  had  been  spoken  to  her  by  Peter. 
She,  too,  was  going  hunting,  but  silently  and  un 
bidden  she  would  steal  through  the  forest  and  see 
this  mysterious  woman  who  played  fast  and  loose 
with  Peter,  who  loved  her  apparently  all  the  better 
for  the  game  she  played.  What  manner  of  woman 
could  do  these  things  ?  What  manner  of  woman  could 
be  indifferent  to  Peter?  Judith  was  consumingly 
curious  to  see.  And,  apart  from  this  naked  and 
unashamed  curiosity,  there  was  the  possibility  that 
at  sight  of  Miss  Colebrooke  there  might  come  a 
relaxation  of  Peter's  tyrannous  hold  upon  her 
thoughts,  her  life,  her  very  heart's  blood.  Would 
her  loyalty  bear  the  test  of  seeing  Peter  made  a  fool 
of  by  a  woman  she  could  dismiss  with  a  shrug — a 
softly  speaking  shrew,  perhaps,  who  played  a  wait 
ing  game  with  her  finger  on  the  pulse  of  Peter's 
prospects?  For  there  was  talk  of  a  partnership 

230 


THE    WOLF-HUNT 

with  the  Wet  mores.  Or  a  fool,  perhaps,  for  all  her 
sonneting,  for  there  are  men  who  relish  a  weak 
headpiece  as  the  chief est  ornament  of  women, 
especially  when  its  indeterminate  vagaries  boast  an 
escape-valve  remotely  connected  with  the  fine  arts. 
Or  a  devil-woman,  perhaps — an  upright  wanton  who 
could  think  no  wrong  from  very  poverty  of  tem 
perament,  yet  kept  him  dangling.  The  possibility 
of  Kitty's  honesty,  Judith  in  her  jealousy  would 
not  admit.  Had  she  gone  to  the  devil  for  him, 
stood  and  faced  the  drift  of  opinion  for  his  sake,  that 
Judith  could  have  understood.  But  what  was  the 
spinning  of  verses  to  a  woman's  portion  of  loving 
and  being  loved?  Even  Alida,  through  all  her  dis 
tracting  anxieties,  had  in  her  heart  the  thrice-blessed 
leaven,  reasoned  the  woman  of  the  plains,  who 
might,  according  to  modern  standards,  be  reckoned 
a  trifle  primitive  in  her  psychological  deductions. 
And,  withal,  Judith  was  forced  to  admit  that  there 
was  something  simple  and  true  about  a  man  who 
would  let  a  woman  make  a  fool  of  him,  whoever 
the  woman  was. 

Perhaps  with  this  hunting  would  end  the  long 
reign  of  Peter  as  a  divinity.  Judith  was  tired,  not 
in  her  vigorous  young  body,  because  that  was  strong 
and  healthful  as  the  hill  wind,  but  tired  in  heart  and 
mind  and  life.  Her  destiny  had  not  been  beautiful 
or  happy  before  he  invaded  it,  but  it  had  been  calm, 
and  now  serenity  seemed  the  worthiest  gift  of  the 
gods.  It  was  not  that  she  loved  him  less,  but  that 
she  had  so  long  reflected  upon  him  that  her  im 
agination  was  numb ;  her  thoughts,  arid,  unfruitful 

231 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

as  the  desert,  turned  from  him  to  the  problems  that 
beset  her,  and  from  them  back  to  him  again,  in  dull, 
subconscious  yearning.  She  could  no  longer  project 
an  anguished  consciousness  to  those  scenes  where 
in  he  walked  and  talked  with  Kitty.  Her  Indian 
fatalism  had  intervened.  "Life  was  life,"  to  be 
lived  or  left.  And  yet  she  felt  herself  a  poor  creat 
ure,  one  who  had  lived  long  on  illusion,  who  had 
bent  her  neck  to  the  yoke  of  arid  unrealities.  The 
pale  -  haired  woman  who  kept  him  with  her  mi 
serliness  of  self,  who  intruded  no  sombre  tragedy 
of  loving,  was  well  worth  a  trip  across  the  foot-hills 
to  see.  And  yet,  Judith  reflected,  it  was  the  por 
tion  of  her  mother's  daughter  to  make  of  loving 
the  whole  business  of  life,  even  if  she  rebelled  and 
fought  against  it  as  an  accursed  destiny.  It  was  in 
her  inheritance  to  know  and  live  for  the  wild  thrill 
of  ecstasy  in  her  pulses,  to  feel  trembling  joy  and 
despair  and  frantic  hope,  that  exacted  its  tribute 
hardly  less  poignant;  as  it  was,  also,  to  feel  a  shiv 
ering  sensitiveness  in  regard  to  the  loneliness  and 
bitterness  of  her  life,  to  have  the  same  measure 
less  capacity  for  sorrow  that  she  had  for  loving,  to 
have  a  soul  attuned  to  the  tragedy  of  things,  to  love 
the  mighty  forces  about  her,  to  feel  the  reflection 
of  all  their  moods  in  her  heart,  and,  lastly,  it  was  her 
destiny  to  be  the  daughter  of  a  half-Sioux  and  a  bor 
der  adventurer,  and  to  feel  the  counter  influences 
of  the  two  races  make  forever  of  her  heart  a  battle 
ground. 

Her  light  feet  scarcely  touched  the  ground  as  she 
sped  swiftly  through  all  the  network  of  the  hills; 

232 


THE    WOLF-HUNT 

and  more  than  once  her  woman's  heart  asked  the 
question,  "And,  prithee,  Judith,  if  from  henceforth 
you  are  only  to  hold  fellowship  with  the  stars  and 
have  no  part  in  the  ways  of  men,  why  do  you  walk 
a  day's  journey  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  a  pale-haired 
woman?" 

She  knew  the  probable  course  of  the  wolf-hunt. 
She  had  been  on  scores  of  them,  galloped  with  Peter 
after  the  fleeing  gray  thing  that  swept  along  the 
ground  like  the  nucleus  of  a  whirling  dust -devil. 
At  least  she  was  sure  of  the  place  of  their  nooning 
— a  limpid  stream  that  ran  close  to  many  young 
pine-trees.  Here  was  a  pause  in  the  rugged  ascent, 
a  level  space  of  open  green,  thick  with  buffalo  grass. 
Many  times  had  she  been  here  with  Peter,  some 
times  with  many  other  people  on  the  chase — some 
times,  and  these  occasions  were  enshrined  in  her 
memory,  each  with  its  own  particular  halo,  with 
Peter  alone;  and  they  had  fished  for  trout  and 
cooked  their  supper  on  the  grassy  levels.  It  was 
in  Judith's  planning  to  arrive  before  the  hunting- 
party,  to  hide  among  the  thickets  of  scrub  pine 
that  grew  along  the  steep  cliffs  and  overlooked  the 
grassy  level,  to  take  her  fill  of  looking  at  the  pale- 
haired  girl  and  the  hunters  at  their  merrymaking, 
and,  when  she  had  seen,  to  steal  back  across  the 
trail  to  the  D axes'.  They  would  not  penetrate  the 
thickets  where  she  meant  to  hide,  and,  should  they, 
she  was  prepared  for  that  contingency,  too.  She 
had  brought  with  her  a  bright  -  colored  shawl  that 
she  would  throw  over  her  head,  and  with  the  start 
of  them  she  could  outrun  them  all,  even  Peter, 

233 


JUDITH    CF    THE    PLAINS 

Had  she  not  outdistanced  him  easily,  many  times, 
in  fun  ?  Through  the  tangle  of  tree  -  trunks  that 
grew  not  far  from  the  thicket,  they  would  think  she 
was  but  a  poor  Shoshone  squaw  lying  in  wait  for 
the  broken  meat  of  the  revellers. 

By  crossing  and  recrossing  the  tiny  creeks  that 
trickled  slow  and  obstructed  through  the  gaunt 
levels  of  plain  and  foot-hill,  she  had  come  by  a 
direct  route  to  the  fringes  of  the  pine  country.  And 
here  she  found  a  world  dim,  green,  and  mysterious. 
It  was  wellnigh  inconceivable  that  the  land  of  sage 
brush  and  silence  could,  within  walking  distance  of 
desolation,  show  such  wealth  of  young  timber,  such 
shade  and  beauty  Her  noiseless  footfalls  scarce 
startled  a  sage-hen  that,  realizing  too  late  her  pres 
ence,  froze  to  the  dead  stump — a  ruffled  gray  ex-r 
crescence  with  glittering  bead  eyes  that  stared  at 
her  furtively,  the  one  live  thing  in  the  tense  body. 

The  sun  wanted  an  hour  of  noon  when  Judith 
rested  by  the  stream,  bathed  her  face  and  hands, 
flushed  from  the  long  walk,  ate  the  bread  and  meat, 
then  lay  on  the  bed  of  pine-needles,  brown  and  soft 
from  the  weathering  of  many  suns  and  snows.  She 
had  been  all  day  in  the  company  she  loved  best — 
the  earth,  the  sky,  the  sun  and  wind — and  in  her 
heart  at  last  was  a  deep  tranquillity.  Thus  she 
could  face  life  and  ask  nothing  but  to  watch  the 
cloud  fleeces  as  they  are  spun  and  heaped  high  in 
the  long  days  of  summer ;  in  soberer  moods  to  watch 
the  thoughts  of  the  Great  Mystery  as  He  reveals  them 
in  the  shifting  cloud  shapes;  to  penetrate  further 
and  further  into  the  councils  of  the  great  forces. 

234 


THE    WOLF-HUNT 

Thus  did  she  dream  the  moments  away  till  the  sun 
was  high  in  the  blue  and  threw  long,  yellow  splashes 
of  light  on  her  still  body,  on  the  soft  pine-needles, 
beneath  the  boughs.  But  there  was  no  time  for 
further  day-dreams  if  she  intended  to  forestall  the 
hunters  at  the  place  of  nooning.  She  followed  a 
game  trail  that  lay  along  the  stream,  ascending 
through  the  dense  growths  till  she  reached  the  top 
of  the  jutting  rocks.  Her  hair  was  loosened,  her 
skirt  awry,  and  the  pine-needles  stood  out  from  it 
as  from  a  cushion.  Much  of  the  way  she  gained  by 
creeping  beneath  the  low  branches  on  her  hands  and 
knees.  No  white  woman  would  be  likely  to  follow 
her  reasoned  the  daughter  of  the  plains.  It  would 
be  a  little  too  hard  on  her  appearance.  And  here, 
by  lying  flat  and  hanging  over  the  jutting  knob  of 
rock,  with  a  pine  branch  in  her  hand,  she  could  see 
this  mysterious  woman  and  Peter  and  the  hunters. 

She  broke  a  branch  to  shade  her  face,  she  looked 
down  on  the  grassy  level.  She  waited,  but  there 
was  no  sound  of  hoofs  falling  muffled  on  the  soft 
ground.  The  shadows  of  the  pines  contended  with 
the  splashes  of  sunlight  for  the  little  world  beneath 
the  trees.  They  trembled  in  mimic  battle,  then  the 
shadows  stole  the  sunlight,  bit  by  bit,  till  all  was 
pale-green  twilight,  and  there  was  no  sound  of  the 
hunters. 

The  hunters,  meanwhile,  had  not  been  altogeth 
er  successful  in  the  chase.  The  necessary  wolf  had 
been  coy,  and  they,  perforce,  had  to  compromise 
with  his  poor  relation,  the  coyote — a  poor  relation, 

235 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

indeed,  whose  shabby  coat,  thinned  by  the  process 
of  summer  shedding,  made  it  an  unworthy  souvenir 
to  Miss  Colebrooke.  But  it  was  not  the  lack  of  a 
wolf  that  robbed  the  hunting-party  of  its  zest  for 
Kitty.  She  could  not  tell  what  it  was,  but  some 
thing  seemed  to  have  gone  wrong  with  the  day  from 
the  beginning.  She  rode  beside  her  cavalier  in  a 
habit  the  like  of  which  the  country  had  never  before 
seen,  and  Peter,  usually  the  most  observant  of  men, 
had  no  word  for  its  multitude  of  perfections.  In  the 
first  realization  of  disappointment  with  the  day,  the 
hunt,  the  hardships  of  the  long  ride,  her  perturbed 
consciousness  took  up  the  problem  of  this  missing 
element  and  tried  to  adjust  itself  to  the  irritating 
absence.  Kitty  wondered  if  it  were  something  she 
had  forgotten.  No,  there  were  her  two  little  cambric 
pocket-handkerchiefs,  remotely  suggestive  of  orris, 
and  bearing  her  monogram  delicately  wrought  and 
characteristic.  It  was  not  her  watch,  the  ribbon 
fob  of  which  fluttered  now  and  then  in  the  breeze. 
It  was  not  veil  nor  scarf-pin  nor  any  of  the  parapher 
nalia  of  the  properly  garbed  horsewoman.  And  yet 
there  was  something  missing,  something  she  should 
have  had  with  her,  something  the  absence  of  which 
was  taking  the  savor  from  the  day's  hunting. 

It  must  be  the  very  bigness  of  this  great,  splendid 
world  that  gave  her  the  sense  of  being  alone  at  sea. 
Intuitively  she  turned  and  looked  at  Peter  riding 
beside  her.  There  was  something  in  his  face  that 
made  her  look  again  before  accepting  the  realization 
at  first  incredulously,  then  with  frank  amusement. 
Peter  had  scarcely  spoken  since  they  left  the  ranch. 


THE    WOLF-HUNT 

She  had  come  down  to  breakfast  so  sure  of  her  new 
riding-habit.  The  Wetmore  girls  had  been  moved 
to  hyperboles  about  its  cut  and  fit  and  the  trim 
shortness  of  the  skirt — short  riding-skirts  were  some 
thing  of  a  novelty  then.  The  fine  gold  hair,  twisted 
tight  at  the  back  of  the  shapely  head,  was  like  a 
coiled  mass  of  burnished  metal,  some  safe-keeping 
device  of  mint  or  gold-worker  till  the  season  of 
coining  or  fashioning  should  come  round.  The  trans 
lucent  flesh-tints,  pearl-white  flushing  into  pink — 
"Bouguereau  realized  at  last,"  as  Nannie  Wetmore 
was  in  the  habit  of  summing  up  her  cousin's  com 
plexion — was  as  marvellous  as  ever.  The  delicate 
firmness  of  profile  gave  to  the  face  the  artificial 
perfection  of  an  old  miniature,  rather  than  of  a 
flesh  -  and  -  blood  countenance,  and  all  these  were 
there  as  of  yore,  but  the  marvel  of  them  failed  of  the 
customary  tribute.  Kitty,  on  scanty  reflection,  was 
at  no  loss  to  translate  Peter's  reserve  into  a  language 
at  once  flattering  and  retributive.  In  her  scheme 
of  life  he  was  always  to  be  her  devoted  cavalier,  as 
indeed  he  had  been  from  the  beginning.  She  loved 
her  own  small  eminence  too  well  to  imperil  her 
tenure  of  it  by  sharing  its  pretty  view  of  men  and 
things  with  any  one.  In  country  house  parties  she 
loved  the  mild  wonder  that  the  successful  litterateuse 
could  fight  and  play  and  win  her  social  triumphs  so 
well.  She  loved  the  star  part,  and  next  to  playing 
it  she  enjoyed  wresting  it  from  other  women  or 
eclipsing  them  completely  in  some  conspicuously 
minor  role,  while,  in  the  matter  of  dress,  Miss 
Colebrooke  went  beyond  the  point  decreed  by  the 
16  237 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

most  exigent  mandates  of  fashion.  When  hats  were 
worn  over  the  face,  her  admirers  had  to  content 
themselves  with  a  glimpse  of  her  charming  mouth 
and  chin.  When  they  flared,  hers  fairly  challenged 
the  laws  of  equilibrium.  She  danced  with  the  same 
facility  with  which  she  rode,  swam,  and  played 
tennis.  In  doing  these  things  supremely  well  she 
felt  that  she  vindicated  the  position  of  the  woman 
of  letters.  Why  should  one  be  a  frump  because  one 
wrote  ? 

Her  friendship  with  Peter  was  to  endure  to  green 
est  old  age,  more  platonic,  perhaps,  than  that  of 
Madame  Re'camier  and  Chateaubriand.  It  was  to  be 
fruitful  in  letters  that  would  compare  favorably 
with  the  best  of  the  seventeenth  century  series. 
Even  now  her  own  letters  to  Peter  were  no  spright 
ly  scrawl  of  passing  events,  but  efforts  whose  seri 
ousness  suggested,  at  least  in  their  carefully  elabora 
ted  stages  of  structure,  the  letters  of  the  ladies  of 
Cranford. 

But  in  the  course  of  these  Western  wanderings, 
undertaken  not  wholly  without  consideration  of 
Peter,  there  had  appeared  in  the  maplike  exactness 
of  her  plans  an  indefinite  territory  that  threatened 
undreamed-of  proportions.  It  menaced  the  scheme 
of  the  letters,  it  shook  the  foundations  of  the 
Chateaubriand-Recamier  friendship.  The  unknown 
quantity  was  none  other  than  the  frequent  and  ir 
ritating  mention  of  one  Judith  Rodney,  who,  from 
all  accounts,  appeared  a  half-breed.  Her  name,  her 
beauty,  some  intrinsic  charm  of  personality  made 
her  an  all  too  frequent  topic,  except  in  the  case  of 


THE    WOLF-HUNT 

Peter.  He  had  been  singularly  keen  in  scenting 
any  interrogatory  venue  that  led  to  the  mysterious 
half-breed;  when  questioned  he  persistently  refused 
to  exhibit  her  as  a  type. 

Kitty  knew  that  she  had  treated  her  long-suf 
fering  cavalier  with  scant  consideration  the  day  he 
had  spurred  across  the  desert  to  see  her.  True,  she 
had  written  him  on  her  arrival,  but,  with  feminine 
perversity  of  logic,  thought  it  a  trifle  inconsiderate 
of  him  to  come  so  soon  after  that  trying  railroad 
journey.  An  ardent  resumption  of  his  suit — and 
Peter  could  be  depended  on  for  renewing  it  early  and 
often — was  farthest  from  her  inclination  at  that 
particular  time.  She  intended  to  salve  her  con 
science  at  the  wolf -hunt  for  her  casual  reception  of 
his  impetuous  visit.  But  apparently  Peter  did  not 
intend  to  be  prodigal  of  opportunity. 

"How  garrulous  you  people  are  this  morning!" 
Nannie  Wetmore  challenged  them.  Peter  came  out 
of  his  brown  study  with -the  look  of  one  who  has 
again  returned  to  earth. 

"You  don't  find  it  like  the  drop-curtain  of  a 
theatre,  now  that  you've  seen  it?"  he  questioned 
Kitty.  For  she  had  doubted  her  pleasure  in  the 
mountains,  in  the  conviction  that  they  would  be  too 
dramatic  for  her  simple  taste. 

Kitty  closed  her  eyes  and  sighted  the  peaks  as  if 
she  were  getting  the  color  scheme  for  an  afternoon 
toilet. 

"Mass,  bulk,  rather  than  line — no,  it's  not  like  a 
drop-curtain,  but  it's  distinctly  'hand-painted.'  All 
it  needs  is  a  stag  surveying  the  prospect  from  that 

239 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

great  cliff.  It's  the  kind  of  thing  that  would  sound 
well  in  a  description.  Oh,  I  assure  you  I  intend  to 
make  lavish  use  of  it,  but  it  leaves  nothing  to  one's 
poor  imagination!" 

Peter  had  a  distinct  feeling  of  being  annoyed. 
No,  she  could  not  appreciate  the  mountains  any 
more  than  they  could  appreciate  her.  They  were 
incongruous,  antipathetic,  antipodal.  Kitty,  in  her 
pink  and  white  and  flaxen  prettiness  and  her  trim 
habit,  was  in  harmony  with  the  bridle-path  of  a  city 
park;  in  this  great,  lonely  country  she  was  an  alien. 
He  thought  of  Judith  and  the  night  they  had  climbed 
Horse-Thief  Trail,  of  her  quiet  endurance,  her  keen 
pleasure  in  the  wild  beauty  of  the  night,  her  quality 
of  companionship,  her  loyalty,  her  silent  bearing 
of  many  burdens.  Yet  until  he  had  seen  them  both 
against  the  same  relentless  background,  he  had 
never  been  conscious  of  comparing  the  two  women. 

Nannie  Wetmore  had  fallen  behind.  She  was 
riding  with  a  bronzed  young  lieutenant  from  Fort 
Washakie.  The  two  ahead  rode  long  without  speak 
ing.  Then  Peter  broke  the  silence  impatiently: 

"You  did  not  really  mean  that,  did  you?"  He 
was  boyishly  hurt  at  her  flippant  summing  up  of  his 
beloved  blue  country.  And  Kitty,  tired  with  the 
long,  hard  ride,  and  missing  that  something  in  Peter 
that  had  always  been  hers,  turned  on  him  a  pair  of 
blue  eyes  in  which  the  tears  were  brimming  sus 
piciously.  They  were  well  out  of  sight  of  the  others, 
and  had  come  to  the  heavy  fringes  of  a  pine  wood. 
Was  it  the  psychological  moment  at  last?  Then 
suddenly  their  horses,  that  had  been  sniffing  the 

240 


THE    WOLF -HUNT 

air  suspiciously,  stopped.  Kitty's  horse,  which  was 
in  advance  of  Peter's,  rushed  towards  the  thicker 
growth  of  pines  as  if  all  Bedlam  were  in  pursuit. 
Peter's  horse,  swerving  from  the  cause  of  alarm, 
bolted  back  across  the  trail  over  which  they  had 
just  made  their  way.  A  large  brown  bear,  feeding 
with  her  cub,  and  hidden  by  the  trees  till  they  were 
directly  in  front  of  her,  had  caused  the  alarm. 

And  presently  the  hush  of  the  shadowy  green 
world  in  which  Judith  lay  was  broken  by  -a  light, 
sobbing  sound.  It  had  been  so  still  that,  lying  on 
her  bed  of  pine-needles,  she  had  likened  it  to  great 
waves  of  silence,  rolling  up  from  the  valley,  break 
ing  over  her  and  sweeping  back  again,  noiseless, 
green  from  the  billowing  ocean  of  pine  branches,  and 
sunlit.  Judith  bent  over  the  rocky  ledge  and  saw  a 
girl  making  her  way  down  the  game  trail,  dishev 
elled  and  tearful.  Her  hat  was  gone,  her  pale-yellow 
hair,  that  in  shadow  had  the  greenish  tinge  of  corn- 
silk,  blew  about  her  shoulders,  her  trim  skirt  was 
torn  and  dusty,  and  she  looked  about,  bewildered, 
hardly  realizing  that  through  the  unexpected  course 
of  things  she  had  been  stranded  in  this  great  world 
of  sunlit  splendor  and  loneliness.  She  closed  her 
eyes.  The  awful  vastness  and  solitude  oppressed 
her  with  a  deepening  sense  of  calamity.  Suppose 
they  never  found  her  ?  How  could  she  find  her  way 
in  this  endless  wilderness,  afoot?  She  sank  to  the 
turf  and  began  to  cry  hysterically. 

Judith  knew  in  a  flash  of  instant  cognition  that 
this  was  Miss  Colebrooke.  Amazement  seemed  to 

241 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

have  dulled  her  powers  of  action — amazement  that 
she,  who  had  stolen  to  this  place  and  crouched  close 
to  earth  that  she  might  see  the  triumph  of  this 
preferred  woman,  and,  having  seen  and  paid  her 
grievous  dole,  steal  away  and  take  up  the  thread 
of  endless  little  things  that  spun  for  her  the  web  of 
life,  was  forced  instead  to  be  an  unwilling  witness 
of  the  other's  distress.  Judith  had  risen  with  her 
first  impulse,  which  had  been  to  go  to  Kitty,  but 
half-way  through  the  thicket  she  hesitated  and 
reconsidered.  Undoubtedly  Peter  would  come  soon, 
and  Peter's  consolation  would  be  more  potent  than 
any  she  could  offer.  She  shrank  in  shuddering  self- 
consciousness  at  the  thought  of  her  presence  at 
their  meeting,  the  uninvited  guest,  the  outgrown 
friend  and  confidante,  blundering  in  at  such  a  time, 
pitifully  full  of  good  intentions.  She  recoiled  from 
the  picture  as  from  a  precipice  that  all  unwittingly 
she  had  escaped.  What  madness  had  induced  her 
to  come  on  this  expedition?  A  sudden  panic  at 
the  possibility  of  discovery  possessed  her;  suppose 
Peter  should  find  her  skulking  like  a  beggar,  waiting 
for  broken  meats?  She  looked  at  the  image  of 
herself  that  she  carried  in  her  heart.  It  was  that 
of  a  proud  woman  who  made  no  moan  at  the  scourge 
of  the  inevitable.  Many  burdens  had  she  carried 
in  her  proud,  lonely  heart,  but  of  them  her  lips  gave 
no  sign.  In  her  contemplative  stoicism  she  felt 
with  pride  that  she  was  no  unworthy  daughter  of 
her  mother's  people,  and  catching  a  glimpse  through 
the  trees  of  the  abjectly  waiting  woman  who,  though 
safe  and  sound,  could  but  wait,  wretched  and  dis- 

242 


THE    WOLF -HUNT 

pirited,  for  some  one  to  come  and  adjust  her  to  the 
situation,  Judith  felt  for  her  a  wondering  pity  at  her 
helplessness.  She  waited,  expectant,  for  the  sound 
of  Peter's  horse.  Surely  he  must  come  at  any 
moment,  overcome  with  apologies,  and  she — Judith 
hid  her  face  in  her  hands  at  the  thought  —  she 
would  steal  away  through  the  thicket  at  the  first 
sound  of  hoofs.  But  as  the  minutes  slipped  by  and 
still  no  sign  of  Peter,  a  sickening  anxiety  began  to 
gnaw  at  her  heart.  Had  something  happened  to 
him? 

She  did  not  wait  to  ask  herself  the  question  twice. 
She  crawled  the  length  of  the  thicket  with  in 
credible  rapidity,  gained  the  pine  forest,  and  made 
her  way  beneath  the  low-hanging  boughs;  without 
stopping  to  protect  herself  from  them  she  gained 
the  open  space  and  ran  quickly  to  Kitty. 

"Are  you  hurt?     What  has  happened?" 

Kitty  looked  up,  startled  at  the  voice.  She  had 
not  heard  the  sound  of  the  moccasined  feet.  Her 
wandering,  forlorn  thoughts  crystallized  at  sight  of 
the  woman  before  her.  A  new  lightning  leaped  into 
her  eyes  as  she  recognized  Judith.  There  was  be 
tween  them  a  thrilling  consciousness  that  gave  to 
their  mutual  perception  a  something  sharp  and  fine, 
that  grasped  the  drama  of  the  moment  with  the 
precision  and  fidelity  of  a  camera.  And  through 
all  the  wonder  of  the  meeting  there  was  in  the  heart 
of  each  an  outflowing  that  met  and  mingled  and 
understood  the  potential  tragedy  element  of  the 
situation. 

"You  are  Miss  Rodney,  I  believe?" 
243 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

Kitty  was  conscious  of  something  strange  in  her 
voice  as  she  looked  into  the  dark  eyes,  wide  with 
questioning  fear.  Ah,  but  she  had  amazing  beauty, 
and  a  something  that  seemed  of  the  very  essence  of 
deep  -  souled  womanliness !  The  two  women  pre 
sented  a  fine  bit  of  antithesis,  Kitty,  flower-like, 
small,  delicately  wrought,  the  finished  product  of 
the  town,  exotic  as  some  rare  transplanted  orchid 
growth.  And  in  Judith  there  was  a  gemlike  qual 
ity:  it  was  in  the  bloom  of  her  skin,  the  iridescent 
radiance  of  her  hair,  that  was  bluish,  like  a  plum  in 
sunlight;  it  was  in  the  warm,  red  life  in  her  lips,  in 
the  pulsing  vitality  of  the  slim,  brown  throat;  in 
every  line  was  sensuous  force  restrained  by  spiritual 
passion. 

Kitty  told  of  the  accident  in  which  her  horse  had 
thrown  her  and  disappeared  in  the  pine  fringes, 
leaving  her  stunned  for  a  moment  or  two;  and  how 
she  had  finally  pulled  herself  together  and  followed 
what  appeared  to  be  a  trail,  in  the  hope  of  finding 
some  one.  She  dwelt  long  on  the  details  of  the 
accident. 

"Yes,  but  Peter,  what  has  happened  him?" 
Judith  chose  her  words  impatiently.  She  was 
racked  with  anxiety  at  his  long  delay,  and  now 
she  hung  over  Kitty,  waiting  for  her  answer,  with 
out  the  semblance  of  a  cloak  for  her  alarm. 

There  was  reproof  in  Kitty's  amendment.  "I 
don't  know  which  way  Mr.  Hamilton's  horse  went. 
It  started  back  over  the  trail,  I  think." 

Judith  clasped  her  hands.  "Let  us  go  and  look 
for  him.  Why  do  we  waste  time?"  But  Kitty 


THE    WOLF-HUNT 

hung  back.  She  was  shaken  from  her  fall,  and  upset 
by  the  events  of  the  morning.  Besides,  her  faith  in 
Peter's  ability  to  cope  with  all  the  exigencies  of  this 
country  was  supreme.  And  chiefest  reason  of  all 
for  her  not  going  was  a  something  within  her  that 
winced  at  the  thought  of  this  fellowship  that  had 
for  its  object  the  quest  of  Peter. 

"Oh,  don't  you  see,"  pleaded  Judith,  "that  if 
something  had  not  happened  to  him  he  would  have 
been  here  long  ago?" 

Judith's  anxiety  awoke  in  Kitty  a  new  conscious 
ness.  What  was  she  to  him,  that  at  the  possibility 
of  harm,  a  fear  not  shared  by  Kitty,  she  should 
throw  off  a  reserve  that  every  line  of  her  face  pro 
nounced  habitual?  In  her  very  energy  of  attitude, 
an  energy  that  all  unconsciously  communicated 
itself  to  Kitty,  there  was  the  power  that  belongs  to 
all  elemental  human  emotion — the  power  that  com 
pels.  Kitty  rose  to  follow  Judith,  then  hesitated. 

"I'm  sure  nothing  has  happened  him.  No,  I'm 
really  too  unstrung  by  my  fall  to  walk."  She 
sank  again  to  the  bowlder  on  which  she  had  been 
sitting. 

To  the  woman  of  the  world,  Judith's  ingenuous 
display  of  feeling  had  in  its  very  sincerity  a  some 
thing  pitiable.  How  could  she  strip  from  her  soul 
every  fold  of  reserve  and  stand  unloved  and  un 
ashamed,  sanctified,  as  it  were,  by  the  very  hope 
lessness  of  her  passion?  How  could  women  make 
of  their  whole  existence  a  thing  to  be  rejected, 
reflected  Kitty,  who,  giving  nothing,  could  not 
understand.  She  looked  again  at  the  bronzed  face 

245 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

beside  her,  so  bold  in  outline,  so  expressive  in  de*  <til. 
Yes,  she  was  beautiful,  and  yet,  what  had  her  beauty 
availed  her?  The  thought  that  she  herself  was  the 
preferred  woman  throbbed  through  her  for  a  moment 
with  a  sense  of  exaltation.  The  next  moment  a 
haunting  doubt  laid  hold  of  her  heart,  held  up 
mockingly  the  little  that  she  and  Peter  had  lived 
through  together,  the  lofty  plane  of  friendship  along 
which  she  had  tried  to  lead  his  unwilling  feet 
sedately,  his  protests,  his  frank  amusement  at  her 
serious  pretensions  to  a  career.  How  much  fuller 
might  not  have  been  the  intercourse  between  him 
and  this  woman,  who,  in  all  probability,  had  been 
his  comrade  for  years  ?  And  she  had  been  idealizing 
him,  and  his  love  for  her,  and  his  loneliness!  Kitty 
stood  with  eyes  cast  down,  while  images  crowded 
upon  her,  leaving  her  cold  and  smiling. 

"But  think,"  pleaded  Judith;  "if  }^ou  don't  come 
it  will  take  me  longer  to  search  the  trail-marks. 
You  could  show  me  just  where  the  horses  ran — " 

Kitty's  eyes  were  still  on  the  ground.  She  did  not 
lift  them,  and  Judith,  realizing  that  further  appeal 
was  but  a  waste  of  time,  turned  and  ran  swiftly 
down  the  trail. 

"He  is  her  lover,"  said  Kitty;  and  all  the  wilder 
ness  before  her  was  no  lonelier  than  her  heart. 

Swift,  intent,  Judith  traced  Kitty's  footprints. 
They  followed  the  game  trail,  the  one  she  herself 
had  taken  earlier  in  the  day.  She  traced  them 
back  through  the  pine  wood  about  a  hundred  rods, 
and  then  the  trail-marks  grew  confused.  This  was 
unquestionably  the  place  where  the  horses  had  taken 

246 


THE    WOLF-HUNT 

fright,  circled,  reared,  then  dashed  in  different 
directions.  She  traced  the  other  horse,  whose 
tracks  led  tinder  low -hanging  boughs.  It  would 
have  been  a  difficult  matter  for  a  horse  with  a  rider 
to  clear;  and  now  the  impression  of  the  horse's  shoes 
grew  fainter,  from  the  lighter  footfalls  of  a  horse 
at  full  gallop. 

"Ah!"  A  cry  broke  from  her  as  she  saw  the  marks 
had  become  almost  eliminated  by  something  that 
had  dragged,  something  heavy.  Those  long-drawn 
lines  were  finger-prints,  where  a  hand  had  dragged 
in  its  vain  endeavor  to  grasp  at  something.  A 
sickening  image  came  persistently  before  her  eyes 
— Peter's  upturned  face,  blood  -  smeared  and  dis 
figured. 

"Sh-sh-sh!"  She  put  her  hand  to  her  breast  to 
still  the  beating  of  her  heart.  She  could  hear  the 
sound  of  hoofs  falling  muffled  on  the  soft  ground, 
and  a  man's  voice  speaking  in  a  soothing  sing-song. 
She  listened.  It  was  Peter's  voice,  reassuring  the 
horse,  asking  him  what  kind  of  a  bag  of  nerves  he 
was  for  a  cow  pony,  to  get  frightened  at  a  bear? 
Judith  stood  tall  and  straight  among  the  pines. 
Surely  he  could  not  blindly  pass  her  by.  He  must 
feel  the  joy  in  her  heart  that  all  was  well  with  him. 
The  hoofs  came  nearer,  the  man's  voice  sounded 
but  intermittently,  as  he  got  his  horse  under  better 
control.  She  felt  as  if  he  must  come  to  her,  as  if 
some  overpowering  consciousness  of  her  presence 
would  speak  from  her  heart  to  his;  but  his  eyes 
scanned  the  distant  trail  for  a  glimpse  of  Kitty  or 
Kitty's  horse.  Judith  saw  that  his  head  was  bound 

247 


JUDITH    OP    THE    PLAINS 

in  something  white  and  that  it  bore  a  .red  stain ,  but 
he  held  himself  well  in  the  saddle.  He  was  not  the 
man  to  heed  a  tumble.  He  urged  the  horse  forward, 
never  looking  towards  the  tree -trunks,  his  face 
white  and  strained  with  anxiety  as  he  scoured 
the  trail  for  evidences  of  Kitty.  The  horse,  with 
a  keener  sense  than  his  master,  shied  slightly  as 
he  passed  the  group  of  pines  where  Judith  stood; 
but  Peter's  glance  was  for  the  open  trail,  and  as  she 
heard  him  canter  by,  so  close  that  she  could  have 
touched  his  stirrup  with  her  hand,  it  seemed  as  if 
he  must  hear  the  beating  of  her  heart. 

"Oh,  blind  eyes,  and  ears  that  will  not  hear,  and 
heart  that  has  forgotten  how  to  beat!  Yes,  go  to 
that  pale,  cold  girl!  You  speak  one  language,  and 
life  for  you  is  the  way  of  little  things!" 

She  waited  till  the  last  sound  of  the  horse's  hoofs 
had  died  away  and  all  was  still  in  the  tremulous 
green  of  the  forest.  Judith's  mind  was  busy  with 
the  image  of  their  meeting,  the  man  bringing  the 
joy  of  his  youth  to  the  calm  divinity  who  could  feel 
no  thrill  of  fear  in  his  absence.  She  broke  into  the 
running  gait  and  hurried  through  the  forest  to  the 
Daxes'. 


XVI 

IN  THE  LAND  OF  THE  RED  SILENCE 

THE  beef -herd,  that  had  been  the  pivotal  point 
of  the  round-up  and  had  made  the  mighty 
plain  echo  to  its  stampings  and  bellowings,  beating 
up  simooms  that  choked  it  with  thirst,  blinded  it 
with  dust,  confounding  itself  on  every  side  by  the 
very  fury  of  its  blind  force,  had  trailed  for  a  week, 
tractable  as  toys  in  the  hands  of  children.  Little 
had  happened  to  vary  the  monotony  for  the  cow- 
punchers  that  handled  the  herd  —  they  grazed, 
guarded,  watered,  night-herded  the  cattle  day  after 
day,  night  after  night.  Pasturage  had  been  suf 
ficient,  if  not  abundant.  The  creeks  were  running 
low  and  slimy  with  the  advance  of  summer,  but 
there  had  been  sufficient  water  to  let  the  herd  drink 
its  fill  at  least  once  a  day. 

The  outfit  ate  its  "sow-belly,"  soda-biscuit,  and 
coffee  three  times  a  day,  and  smoked  its  pipes,  but 
was  a  little  shy  on  yarns  round  the  camp-fire. 

"This  yere  outfit  don't  lather  none,"  commented 
the  cook  to  the  horse-wrangler,  over  the  smoke  of 
an  early  morning  fire. 

"Don't  lather  no  more  than  a  chunk  of  wood," 
agreed  the  horse  -  wrangler.  "That's  the  trouble 

249 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

with  a  picked-up  outfit  like  this.  Catch  '  W-square ' 
men  kowtowing  to  a  '  XXX '  boss,  even  if  he  is  only 
acting  foreman." 

Simpson,  the  origin  of  whose  connection  with  the 
"XXX"  was  rather  a  sensitive  subject  with  that 
outfit,  had  begun  to  take  his  duties  as  a  cattle 
man  with  grim  seriousness;  he  was  untiring  in  his 
labors;  he  spent  long  hours  in  the  saddle,  he  took 
his  turn  at  night  herding,  though  he  was  old  for 
this  kind  of  work.  He  condemned  the  sheep-men 
with  foul-mouthed  denunciations,  scoffed  at  their 
range  -  rights,  said  the  sheep  question  should  be 
dealt  with  in  the  business  -  like  manner  in  which 
the  Indian  question  had  been  settled.  He  was  an 
advocate  of  violence — in  short,  a  swaggering,  bom 
bastic  wind-bag.  He  talked  much  of  "his  outfit" 
and  "his  men."  "What  was  good  enough  for  them 
was  good  enough  for  him,"  he  would  announce  at 
meal-time,  in  a  snivelling  tone,  when  the  food  hap 
pened  to  be  particularly  bad.  He  split  the  tem 
porary  outfit,  brought  together  for  the  purpose  of 
handling  the  beef-herd,  into  factions.  He  put  the 
"XXX"  in  worse  repute  than  it  already  enjoyed 
— he  was,  in  fact,  the  discordant  spirit  of  the  ex 
pedition.  The  men  attended  to  their  work  sullenly. 
Discord  was  rife.  The  one  thought  they  shared  in 
common  was  that  of  the  wages  that  would  come  to 
them  at  the  end  of  the  drive;  of  the  feverish  joy  of 
"blowing  in,"  in  a  single  night;  perchance,  of  for 
getting,  in  one  long,  riotous  evening,  the  monotony, 
the  hardship,  the  lack  of  comradery  that  made 
this  particular  drive  one  long  to  be  remembered 

250 


IN   THE   LAND   OF   THE   RED   SILENCE 

in  the  mind  of  every  man  who  had  taken  part 
in  it. 

Meanwhile  the  herd  trailed  its  half-mile  length 
to  the  slaughtering  pens  day  after  day,  all  un 
conscious  of  its  power.  When  the  steers  had  trailed 
for  about  a  fortnight,  the  question  of  finding  suf 
ficient  water  for  them  began  to  be  a  serious  one. 
The  preceding  winter  had  been  unusually  mild, 
the  snow-fall  on  the  mountains  averaging  less  than 
in  the  recollection  of  the  oldest  plains-man.  Summer 
had  begun  early  and  waxed  hot  and  dry.  The  earth 
began  to  wrinkle,  and  cracked  into  trenches,  like 
gaping  mouths,  thirsty  for  the  water  that  came  not. 
Such  streams  as  had  not  dried  shrank  and  crawled 
among  the  willows  like  slimy  things,  that  the  herd, 
thirsty  though  it  was  from  the  long  drives,  had  to 
be  coaxed  to  drink  from. 

Discontent  grew.  The  acting  foreman,  who  was 
a  "XXX"  man,  and  a  comparative  stranger  to 
that  part  of  the  country,  refused  to  consult  with  the 
"W- square"  -men  in  the  outfit,  who  knew  every 
inch  of  the  ground.  The  acting  foreman  thought 
the  Wetmore  men  looked  down  on  him,  "put  on 
dog";  and,  to  flaunt  his  authority,  he  ordered  the 
herd  driven  due  west  instead  of  skirting  to  the 
north  by  the  longer  route,  where  they  wrould  have 
had  the  advantage  of  drinking  at  several  creeks 
before  crossing  Green  River.  Moreover,  the  acting 
foreman  was  drinking  hard,  and  he  insisted  upon  his 
order  in  spite  of  the  Wetmore  men's  protestations. 

The  character  of  the  country  began  to  change,  the 
soil  took  on  the  color  of  blood,  even  the  omnipresent 

251 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

sage-brush  began  to  fail  the  landscape;  sun-bleach 
ed  bones  glistened  on  the  red  soil,  white  as  ulcers. 
All  the  animal  trails  led  back  from  the  country  into 
which  they  were  proceeding.  The  sky,  a  vivid, 
cloudless  blue,  paled  as  it  dipped  earthward.  The 
sun  looked  down,  a  flaming  copper  shield.  There 
was  no  sign  of  life  in  all  the  land.  Even  the  grass 
hoppers  had  left  it  to  the  sun,  the  silence,  and  the 
desolation.  To  ears  accustomed  to  the  incessant 
shrilling  of  the  insects,  the  cessation  was  ominous, 
like  the  sudden  stopping  of  a  clock  in  a  chamber 
of  death.  Above  the  angry  bellow  of  the  thirsty 
herd  the  men  strained  their  ears  again  and  again 
for  this  familiar  sound  of  life,  but  there  was  nothing 
but  the  bellowing  of  the  cattle,  the  trampling  of 
their  hoofs,  and  sometimes  the  long,  squealing 
whinny  of  a  horse  as  he  threw  back  his  head  in 
seeming  demand  to  know  the  justice  of  this  thing. 

Across  the  red  plain  snailed  the  herd,  like  a 
many  -  jointed,  prehistoric  reptile  wandering  over 
the  limitless  spaces  of  some  primeval  world.  A 
cloud  of  red  dust  hung  over  them  in  a  dense  haze, 
trailed  after  them  a  weary  length,  then  all  was 
featureless  monotony  as  before.  What  were  a  thou 
sand  steers,  a  handful  of  men  and  horses,  in  the 
land  of  the  red  silence?  It  had  seen  the  comings 
and  goings  of  many  peoples,  and  once  it  had  flowed 
with  streams ;  but  that  was  before  the  curse  of  God 
came  upon  it,  and  in  its  harsh,  dry  barrenness  it 
grew  to  be  a  menace  to  living  things. 

The  saddle -stock  had  been  watered  at  some 
fetid  alkali  holes  that  had  scarce  given  enough  to 

252 


IN   THE   LAND   OF   THE    RED   SILENCE 

slake  their  thirst.  The  effect  of  the  water  had 
weakened  them,  and  the  steers  that  had  been  with 
out  water  for  thirty-six  hours  were  being  pushed  on 
a  course  slightly  northwest  as  rapidly  as  the  en 
feebled  condition  of  the  saddle-horses  would  permit. 
Creek  after  creek  that  they  had  made  for  proved  to 
be  but  a  dry  bed. 

The  glare  of  the  red  earth,  under  the  scourge  of 
the  flaming  sun,  tormented  the  eyes  of  the  men  into 
strange  illusions.  The  naked  red  plain  stretched 
flat  like  the  colossal  background  of  a  screen,  over 
which  writhed  a  huge  dragon,  spined  with  many 
horns,  headless,  trailing  its  tortuous  way  over  the 
red  world.  Sometimes  it  was  as  unreal  as  a  fever- 
haunted  dream,  a  drug-inspired  nightmare,  when  a 
Chinese  screen,  perchance,  has  stood  at  the  foot  of 
the  sleeper's  bed.  Sometimes  the  dragon  curled 
itself  into  a  ball,  and  the  foreman  sung  out  that  they 
were  milling,  and  the  men  turned  and  rode  away 
from  it,  then  dashed  back  at  it,  after  getting  the 
necessary  momentum,  entered  like  a  flying  wedge, 
fought  their  way  into  the  rocking  sea  of  surging 
bodies,  shouted  from  their  thirst  -  parched  throats 
imprecations  that  were  lost  in  the  dull,  sullen  roar. 
Then  the  dragon  would  uncoil  and  again  trail  its 
way  over  the  red  waste-lands. 

A  red  sun  had  begun  to  set  over  a  red  earth,  and 
the  men  who  had  been  out  since  noon-  scouring  the 
country  for  water,  returned  to  say  that  none  had 
been  found,  and  they  began  to  look  into  each 
other's  faces  for  the  answer  that  none  could  give. 
At  sunset  they  made  a  dry  camp;  there  was  but 

17 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

enough  water  left  to  cook  with.  Each  man  received, 
as  a  thirst-quenching  ration,  a  can  of  tomatoes. 
After  supper  they  consulted,  and  it  was  agreed  to 
trail  the  herd  till  midnight,  taking  advantage  of 
the  coolness  to  hurry  them  on  as  fast  as  possible 
to  Green  River.  The  grave  nature  of  their  plight 
was  indicated  by  the  fact  that  no  one  smoked  after 
supper.  Silent,  sullen,  they  sat  round,  waiting  for 
the  foreman  to  give  the  order  to  advance.  He 
waited  for  the  moon  to  come  up.  Slowly  it  rose 
over  the  Bad  Land  Hills  and  hung  round  and  full 
like  a  gigantic  lantern.  The  watches  were  arranged 
for  the  night  with  a  double  guard.  Every  man  in 
the  outfit  was  beginning  to  have  a  feeling  of  panic 
that  communicated  itself  to  every  other  man,  and 
as  they  looked  at  the  herd,  tractable  now  no  longer, 
but  a  blind  force  that  they  must  take  chances  with 
through  the  long  watches  of  the  night,  while  the 
thirst  grew  in  the  beasts'  parched  throats,  they 
foresaw  what  would  in  all  probability  happen ;  they 
thought  of  their  women,  of  all  that  most  strongly 
bound  them  to  life,  and  they  sat  and  waited 
dumbly. 

The  moon  that  night  was  too  brilliant  for  benisons ; 
the  gaunt,  red  world  lay  naked  and  unshriven  for  the 
sin  that  long  ago  had  brought  upon  it  the  wrath  of 
God.  The  picture  was  still  that  of  the  grotesque 
Chinese  screen,  with  the  headless  dragon  crawling 
endlessly;  but  the  dream  was  long,  centuries  long, 
it  seemed  to  the  men  listening  to  the  bellowing  of 
the  herd.  And  while  they  waited,  the  red  grew 
dull  and  the  dragon  dingy,  and  its  fury  made  its 

254 


IN  THE  LAND  OF  THE  RED  SILENCE 

contortions  the  more  horrible;  and  that  was  all 
the  difference  between  day  and  night  in  the  land  of 
the  red  silence.  Sometimes  the  dragon  split,  and 
joints  of  it  tried  to  turn  back  to  the  last  water  it 
had  drunk;  for  cattle,  though  blinded  with  thirst, 
never  forget  the  last  stream  at  which  they  have 
quenched  thirst,  and  will  turn  back  to  it,  though 
they  drop  on  the  way.  But  the  men  pressed  them 
farther  and  farther,  and  for  yet  a  little  while  the 
cattle  yielded. 

At  midnight  the  saddle-stock  was  incapable  of 
moving  farther.  One  horse  had  fallen  and  lay  too 
weak  to  rise.  The  others,  limping  and  foot -sore, 
no  longer  responded  to  quirt  and  rowel.  The  fore 
man  ordered  the  herd  thrown  on  the  bed  ground 
for  the  night.  The  herders  for  the  first  watch 
began  to  circle.  The  rest  of  the  outfit  took  to  its 
blankets  to  snatch  a  little  rest  for  the  double  duty 
that  awaited  every  man  that  night.  Now  it  is  a 
time-honored  belief  among  cow-men  that  the  herd 
must  be  sung  to,  particularly  when  it  is  restless, 
and  to-night  they  tried  all  the  old  favorites,  the 
"  Cow-boy's  Lament "  being  chief  among  them.  But 
the  herd  refused  to  be  soothed,  and  round  and 
round  it  circled;  not  once  would  it  lie  down. 

The  moon  gleamed  almost  brazen,  showing  the 
cruel  scars,  the  trenches  torn  by  cloud-bursts,  the 
lines  wrought  by  the  long,  patient  waiting  of  the 
earth  for  the  lifting  of  the  wrath  of  God.  Imperish 
able  grief  was  writ  on  the  land  as  on  a  human  face. 
The  night  wore  on,  the  watches  changed,  the  herd 
continued  restless;  not  more  than  a  third  of  it  had 

255 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

bedded  down.  The  third  watch  was  from  one 
o'clock  to  half-past  three  in  the  morning.  Simpson 
and  another  "XXX"  man,  with  two  of  the  Wet- 
more  outfit,  made  up  a  double  watch,  and  rode, 
singing,  about  the  herd,  as  the  long,  dreary  watch 
wore  away.  The  cattle's  lowing  had  taken  on  a 
gasping,  cracked  sound  that  was  more  frightful 
than  the  maddened  bellow  of  the  early  evening. 
Simpson,  who  was  past  the  age  when  men  live  the 
life  of  the  saddle,  felt  the  hardship  keenly.  He  had 
ridden  since  sunrise,  but  for  the  respite  at  noon, 
and  the  scant  time  at  the  dry  camp  while  the  even 
ing  meal  was  being  eaten.  He  was  more  than 
half  asleep  now,  as  he  lurched  heavily  in  the  saddle, 
crossing  and  recrossing  his  partner  in  the  half- 
circle  they  completed  about  the  herd.  Suddenly 
the  sharp  yelp  of  a  coyote  rang  out;  it  seemed  to 
come  from  no  farther  than  twenty  yards  away. 
The  cattle  heard  it,  too,  and  a  wave  of  panic  swept 
through  them.  Simpson  stiffened  in  his  saddle. 
The  sound,  which  was  repeated,  was  an  exact  re 
production  of  a  coyote's  yelp,  yet  he  knew  that  it 
was  not  a  coyote. 

The  herd  rose  to  its  feet  as  a  single  steer,  and  for  a 
second  stood  undetermined.  From  a  clump  of  sage 
brush  not  more  than  two  feet  high  fluttered  some 
thing  long  and  white  like  a  sheet.  It  waved  in  the 
wind  as  the  cry  was  repeated.  The  herd  crashed 
forward  in  a  stampede,  Simpson  in  the  lead  on  a 
tired  horse,  but  a  scant  length  ahead  of  a  thousand 
maddened  steers  bolting  in  a  panic  of  thirst  and 
fear. 

256 


IN   THE   LAND   OF   THE   RED   SILENCE 

"Hell's  loose!"  yelled  the  men  in  their  blankets, 
making  for  the  temporary  rope  corral  to  secure 
horses.  Simpson,  tallow-colored  with  fear,  clung 
like  a  cat  to  his  horse,  and  dug  the  rowels  in  the 
beast's  flanks  till  they  were  bloody  and  dripping. 
He  had  seen  Jim  Rodney's  face  above  the  white 
cloth  as  it  fluttered  in  the  face  of  the  herd  that  came 
pounding  behind  him  with  the  rumble  of  nearing 
thunder.  He  was  too  close  to  them  to  attempt 
to  fire  his  revolver  in  the  air  in  the  hope  of  turning 
them,  but  the  boys  had  evidently  got  into  their 
saddles,  to  judge  by  the  volley  of  shots  that  rang  out 
and  were  answered.  Simpson  alone  rode  ahead  of 
the  herd  that  tore  after  him,  ripping  up  the  earth 
as  it  came,  bellowing  in  its  blind  fury.  His  horse, 
a  thoroughly  seasoned  cow-pony,  sniffed  the  bedlam 
and  responded  to  the  goading  spur.  She  had  been 
in  cattle  stampedes  before,  and,  though  every  fibre 
ached  with  fatigue,  she  flattened  out  her  lean  body 
and  covered  ground  to  the  length  of  her  stride  at 
each  gallop.  The  herd  was  so  close  that  Simpson 
could  smell  the  stench  of  their  sweating  bodies, 
taste  their  dust,  and  feel  the  scorch  of  their  breath. 
The  sound  of  their  hoofs  was  like  the  pounding  of  a 
thousand  propellers.  From  above  looked  the  moon, 
round  and  serene;  she  had  watched  the  passing  of 
many  peoples  in  the  land  of  the  red  silence.  The 
horse  seemed  to  be  gaining.  A  few  more  lengths 
ahead  and  Simpson  could  turn  her  to  one  side  and 
let  the  maddened  cattle  race  to  their  own  destruc 
tion.  All  he  asked  of  God  was  to  escape  their  tram 
pling  hoofs,  and  though  he  gained  he  dug  the  rowel 

257 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

and  plied  the  quirt,  unmindful  of  what  he  did.  On 
they  came;  the  chorus  of  their  fear  swelled  like  the 
voice  of  a  mighty  cataract,  the  pound,  pound,  pound 
of  their  hoofs  ringing  like  mighty  sledge-hammers. 

Suddenly  he  felt  himself  sinking,  horribly,  ir 
resistibly.  "God!  What  is  it?"  as  his  horse  went 
down  with  her  foreleg  in  a  gopher-hole.  "Up,  up, 
you  damned  brute!"  but  the  mare's  leg  had  cracked 
like  a  pipe-stem.  In  his  fury  at  the  beast  Simpson 
began  kicking  her,  then  started  to  run  as  the  cattle 
swept  forward  like  a  black  storm-cloud. 

The  next  second  the  great  sea  of  cattle  had  broken 
over  horse  and  rider.  When  it  had  passed  there 
was  not  enough  left  of  either  to  warrant  burial  or  to 
furnish  a  feast  for  the  buzzards.  A  few  shreds  of 
clothes,  that  had  once  been  a  man,  lay  scattered 
there ;  a  something  that  had  been  a  horse. 


XVII 

MRS.  YELLETT   CONTENDS  WITH   A  CLOUD- 
BURST 

HP  HE  matriarch  had  delayed  longer  in  moving 
1  camp  than  was  consistent  with  her  habitual 
watchfulness  where  the  interests  of  the  sheep  were 
involved.  Mary  Carmichael,  who  had  already  be 
come  inured  to  the  experience  of  moving,  was  even 
conscious  of  a  certain  impatience  at  the  delay,  and 
could  only  explain  the  apathy  with  which  Mrs.  Yel- 
lett  received  reports  of  the  dearth  of  pasturage  on 
the  ground  that  she  wished  each  fresh  educational 
germ  to  take  as  deep  root  as  possible  before  trans 
plantation.  So  that  when  Mrs.  Yellett,  shortly  after 
Leander  Dax's  arrival  at  camp  in  the  capacity  of 
herder,  announced  that  she  and  Leander  were  to 
make  a  trip  to  the  dipping-vat  that  had  kept  Ben 
from  his  classes  for  the  past  ten  days,  and  invited 
the  "gov'ment"  to  join  the  expedition,  Mary  ac 
cepted  with  fervor. 

The  Yelletts'  "bunch"  of  sheep  did  not  exceed 
three  thousand  head,  and  the  matriarch  had  wisely 
decreed  that  it  should  be  restricted  to  that  number, 
as  she  wished  always  to  give  the  flock  her  personal 
supervision. 

259 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

'"The  hen  that's  the  surest  of  her  chicks  is  the  one 
that  does  her  own  settin',' "  was  the  adage  from  the 
Book  of  Hiram  with  which  Mrs.  Yellett  succinctly 
summed  up  the  case. 

Each  autumn,  therefore,  the  wethers  and  the 
dry-bag  ewes  were  sent  to  the  market,  and  as  the 
result  of  continual  weeding  of  the  stock  the  matri 
arch  had  as  promising  a  herd  of  its  size  as  could 
be  found  in  Wyoming.  Often  she  had  explained  to 
Mary,  who  was  learning  of  the  wonders  of  this  new 
world  with  remarkable  aptness,  that  she  had  con 
stantly  to  fight  against  the  inclination  to  increase 
her  business  of  sheep-raising,  but  that  as  soon  as  she 
should  begin  to  hire  herders  or  depend  on  strangers 
things  would  go  wrong.  With  the  assistance  of  her 
sons,  she  therefore  managed  the  entire  details  of  the 
herd,  with  the  exception  of  those  occasions  on  which 
Leander  lent  his  semi-professional  co-operation. 

As  a  workman  Leander  was,  considering  his  size 
and  apparent  weakness,  surprisingly  efficient.  It 
was  as  a  dispenser  of  anti-theological  doctrine  that 
Mrs.  Dax's  husband  annoyed  his  temporary  em 
ployer.  Freed  from  his  wife's  masterful  presence, 
Leander  dared  to  be  an  "agnostic,"  as  he  called 
himself,  of  an  unprecedentedly  violent  order.  His 
iconoclasm  was  not  of  a  pattern  with  paw's  gusty 
protests  against  life  in  general,  but  it  was  Leander's 
way  of  asserting  himself,  on  the  rare  occasions  when 
he  got  a  chance,  to  deny  clamorously  every  tenet 
advanced  by  every  religion.  The  mere  use  of  certain 
familiar  expletives  drove  him,  ordinarily  mild  and 
submissive  though  lie  was,  to  frantic  gesticulation 


A    CLOUD-BURST 

and  diatribe.  Mary  Carmichael  could  not  make  out, 
as  she  watched  the  comedy  with  growing  amuse 
ment,  whether  poor  Leander  really  believed  that  he 
was  the  first  of  doubting  Thomases,  or  whether 
he  took  an  unfair  advantage  of  the  lack  of  general 
information  in  his  casual  audiences  to  set  forth 
well-known  opinions  as  his  own.  Whatever  its 
basis  may  have  been,  Leander  sustained  the  role 
of  doubter  with  passionate  zeal,  wearing  himself 
to  tatters  of  rage  and  hoarseness  over  arguments 
maliciously  contrived  beforehand  by  cow-punchers 
and  sheep  -  herders  in  need  of  amusement ;  and  yet 
he  never  saw  the  traps,  going  out  of  his  way,  ap 
parently,  to  fall  into  them,  tumbling  headlong  into 
the  identical  pits  time  after  time.  Jonah  and  the 
whale  constituted  one  bait  by  means  of  which  Le 
ander  could  be  lured  from  food,  sleep,  or  work  of  the 
most  pressing  nature. 

"The  poor  fool  would  stop  in  the  middle  of  shearing 
a  sheep  to  argue  that  Jonah  never  come  out  of  the 
whale's  belly,"  the  matriarch  had  told  Mary  Carmi 
chael,  in  summing  up  Leander's  disadvantages  as  a 
herder.  And  the  first  remark  she  had  addressed  to 
him  on  his  arrival  was:  "Leander  Dax,  you'd  have 
to  be  made  over,  and  made  different,  to  keep  you 
from  bein'  a  infidel,  but  there's  one  p'int  on  which 
you  are  particularly  locoed,  and  that's  Jonah  and 
the  whale.  Now  at  this  particular  time  in  the  his- 
t'ry  of  the  United  States,  nobody  in  his  faculties  has 
got  no  call  to  fret  hisself  over  Jonah  and  his  where 
abouts — none  whatever.  There's  a  lot  of  business 
round  this  here  camp  that's  a  heap  more  pressin'. 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

Now,  Leander  Dax,  if  I  do  hereby  undertake  to  hire, 
engage,  and  employ  you  to  herd  sheep,  do  you  agree 
to  renounce  discussions,  arguments,  and  debates 
OR  the  late  Jonah  and  his  whereabouts  durin'  them 
three  days?  God  A'mighty,  man,  any  one  would 
think  you  was  Jonah's  wife,  the  interest  you  have 
in  his  absence!" 

"  I  come  here  to  herd  sheep,"  Leander  had  brazen 
ly  retaliated.  "I  'ain't  come  to  try  to  make  you 
think." 

Nevertheless,  he  appeared  docile  enough  as  the 
time  came  for  the  journey  to  the  dipping-vat,  and 
did  his  part  in  making  ready.  The  wagon  was 
the  rudest  of  structures ;  it  consisted  merely  of  one 
long,  stout  pole.  Though  she  saw  the  horses  being 
harnessed  to  this  pole,  Mary  Carmichael,  discreetly 
exercising  her  newly  acquired  wisdom,  forbore  to 
ask  where  she  was  going  to  sit,  and  listened  with 
interest  to  a  discussion  between  Mrs.  Yellett  and 
Leander  as  to  the  number  of  horses  it  would  take  to 
get  the  dip  up  the  mountain.  Leander,  who  loved 
pomp  and  splendor,  was  for  taking  six,  but  Mrs. 
Yellett,  who  carried  simplicity  to  a  fault,  was  in 
favor  of  only  two.  They  finally  compromised  on 
four,  and  Leander  went  to  fetch  the  extra  two. 

Mrs.  Yellett,  ever  economical  of  the  flitting  mo 
ment,  took  advantage  of  the  delay  to  give  Mr.  Yel 
lett  a  dose  of  "Brainard's  Beneficial  Blackthorn." 

"Paw's  as  hard  to  manage  as  a  bent  pin,"  she 
remarked,  in  an  aside  to  Mary,  while  he  protested 
and  fought  her  off  with  his  stick.  But  she,  with  the 
agility  of  an  acrobat,  got  directly  back  of  him,  took 

26? 


A    CLOUD-BURST 

his  head  under  her  arm,  pried  open  his  mouth,  and 
poured  down  the  unwelcome,  if  beneficial,  dose. 

"There,  there,  paw,"  she  said,  wiping  his  mouth 
as  if  he  had  been  a  baby,  "don't  take  on  so!  It's 
all  gone,  and  I  can't  have  you  sick  on  my  hands." 

But  Mr.  Yellett  continued  to  splutter  and  flare 
and  use  violent  language,  whereupon  the  matriarch 
went  into  the  tent  and  returned  with  a  drink  of 
condensed  -  milk  and  water,  "to  wash  down  the 
nasty  taste,"  she  told  him,  soothingly.  . 

A  moment  afterwards  she  and  Leander  were  en 
gaged  in  rolling  the  barrels  of  sheep-dip  to  the  wag 
on,  Mary  Carmichael  helplessly  looking  on  while 
Mrs.  Yellett  looked  doubtfully  at  a  "gov'ment" 
who  could  not  handle  barrels.  Finally,  under  the 
skilful  manipulation  of  Mrs.  Yellett  and  Leander, 
the  long  pole  took  on  the  aspect  of  a  colossal  verte 
bral  column,  from  which  huge  barrel-ribs  projected 
horizontally,  leaving  at  the  rear  a  foot  or  so  of  bare 
pole  as  a  smart  caudal  appendage,  bearing  about  the 
same  proportion  to  the  wagon  as  the  neatly  bitten 
tail  of  a  fox-terrier  does  to  the  dog. 

Mrs.  Yellett  kissed  "paw"  good-bye,  explaining 
to  Mary,  in  extenuation  of  her  weakness,  that  she 
would  never  forgive  herself  if  she  neglected  it  and 
anything  happened  to  him  during  her  absence.  She 
then  climbed  to  the  front  barrel  and  secured  the 
ribbons.  Leander  had  brought  out  three  rolls  of 
bedding  of  the  inevitable  bed -quilt  variety,  but 
Mrs.  Yellett  scorned  such  luxury  while  driving, 
and  accordingly  gave  hers  to  the  "gov'ment"  for  a 
back-rest.  Mary  sat  on  the  lower  row  of  barrels, 

263 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

with  her  feet  dangling,  usirtg  one  roll  of  bedding  for 
a  seat  and  the  other  comfortably  arranged  at  her 
back  as  a  cushion. 

Madam  called  sharply  to  the  horses,  "Hi-hi-hi- 
kerat!  hi  -  kerat  -  kerat!"  and  they  started  off  at 
a  rattling  pace,  the  barrels  of  dip  creaking  and 
squeaking  as  they  swayed  under  their  rope  lashings. 
Mary  bounced  about  like  a  bean  in  a  bag,  working 
loose  from  between  the  bed-quilt  rolls  at  each  gul- 
ley,  clinging  frantically  to  barrel  ends,  shaken  back 
and  forth  like  a  shuttle.  Indeed,  the  drive  seemed 
to  combine  every  known  form  of  physical  exercise. 
Mrs.  Yellett  herself  was  in  fine  fettle;  she  drove 
sitting  for  a  while,  then  rose,  standing  on  a  narrow 
ledge  while  she  held  the  four  ribbons  lightly  in  one 
hand  and  tickled  the  leaders  with  a  long  whip  car 
ried  in  the  other.  She  drove  her  four  horses  over 
the  rough  road  with  the  skill  of  a  circus  equestri 
enne,  balancing  easily  on  the  crazy  ledge,  shifting  her 
weight  from  side  to  side  as  the  wagon  rattled  down 
gullies  and  up  ridges,  the  horses  responding  gallant 
ly  to  the  shrill  "  Hi-hi-kerat !  hi -kerat!  hi-kerat!" 
Her  costume  on  this  occasion  represented  joint  con 
cessions  to  her  sex  and  the  work  that  was  before  her, 
as  the  head  of  a  family  at  the  dipping -vat.  She 
still  wore  the  drum  -  shaped  rabbit  -  skin  cap  pulled 
well  down  over  her  forehead  for  driving.  The  great, 
cable-like  braids  of  hair  stood  out  well  below  the 
cap,  giving  her  head  an  appearance  of  denseness 
and  solidity,  but  the  rambling  curls  were  still  blow 
ing  about  her  face,  perhaps  adding  to  the  sum  total 
of  grotesqueness.  She  wore  a  man's  shirt  of  gray 

264 


A    CLOUD-BURST 

flannel,  well  open  at  the  neck,  from  which  the 
bronzed  column  of  the  throat  rose  in  austere  dignity. 
A  pair  of  Mr.  Yellett's  trousers,  stuffed  into  high, 
cow-puncher's  boots,  that  met  the  hem  of  a  skirt 
coming  barely  to  the  knees,  contributed  to  the 
originality  of  her  dress. 

The  wagon  had  been  pitching  like  a  ship  at  sea 
through  the  desert  dreariness  for  about  an  hour, 
when  Mary  Carmichael  suddenly  became  conscious 
that  the  prods  she  had  been  receiving  from  time  to 
time  in  her  back  were  not  due  either  to  their  manner 
of  locomotion  or  to  the  freight  carried.  Clinging 
to  two  barrels,  she  waited  for  the  next  lurch  of  the 
wagon  to  shake  her  free  from  the  rolls  of  bedding, 
and,  at  the  peril  of  life  and  limb,  looked  round. 
Leander  hung  over  the  top  row  of  barrels,  gesticulat 
ing  wildly.  The  change  in  the  man,  since  leaving 
camp  some  two  hours  previous,  was  appalling.  He 
seemed  to  have  shrivelled  away  to  a  wraith  of  his 
former  self.  His  cheeks,  his  chin,  had  waned  to  the 
vanishing  point.  He  opened  his  lips  and  mouthed 
horribly,  yet  his  frightful  grimacings  conveyed  no 
meaning.  Mary  called  to  Mrs.  Yellett,  but  her 
voice  was  drowned  in  the  rattle  of  the  wagon,  the 
clatter  of  four  horses'  hoofs,  and  the  continual 
"Hi-hi-hi-kerat!  hi-kerat!"  of  the  driver.  In  the 
mean  time  Leander  pointed  to  his  mouth  and  back 
to  the  road  in  indescribably  pathetic  pantomime. 
"  Perhaps  the  poor  creature  wants  to  turn  back  and 
die  in  his  bed,  like  a  Christian,  even  if  he  isn't  one," 
thought  Mary,  as  she  called  and  called,  Leander  still 
emitting  the  most  inhuman  of  cries,  like  the  sounds 

265 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

made  by  deaf  mutes  in  distress.  Presently  Mrs. 
Yellett  drew  up,  and  asked  in  the  name  of  many 
profane  things  what  was  the  matter  with  her 
companions. 

Leander  resumed  his  mouthings  and  his  dumb 
show,  but  Mrs.  Yellett  proved  a  better  interpreter 
than  Mary  Carmichael. 

"God  A'mighty!"  she  said,  "he's  lost  his  false 
teeth!"  And  without  another  word  she  turned  the 
four  horses  and  the  wagon  with  a  skill  that  fell  little 
short  of  sleight-of-hand. 

The  dialogue  that  followed  between  Mrs.  Yellett 
and  Leander  as  to  how  far  back  he  had  dropped  his 
teeth,  cannot  be  given,  owing  to  the  inadequacy  of 
the  English  language  to  reproduce  his  toothless 
enunciation.  Catching,  as  Mary  did,  the  meaning 
of  Mrs.  Yellett's  remarks  only,  she  received  some 
thing  of  the  one-sided  impression  given  by  over 
hearing  a  telephone  conversation : 

"What  did  you  have  'em  out  for?  ...  You  didn't 
have  'em  out?  ...  I  just  shook  'em  out?  Then 
what  made  you  have  your  mouth  open?  Ef  your 
mouth  had  been  shut,  you  couldn't  have  lost  'em. 
.  .  .  You  was  a-yawnin',  eh?  Well,  you  are  a  plumb 
fool  to  yawn  on  this  kind  of  a  waggin,  with  your 
mouth  full  o'  china  teeth.  Your  yawnin'  '11  put  us 
back  a  good  hour  an*  we  won't  reach  camp  before 
sundown." 

At  this  point  of  the  diatribe  the  Infidel  left  the 
wagon  and  began  to  search  along  the  road.  He  said 
he  had  noticed  a  buffalo  skull  near  the  place  where 
he  had  dropped  the  teeth,  and  thought  he  could 

266 


A    CLOUD-BURST 

trace  them  by  this  landmark.  Mrs.  Yellett  held 
the  ribbons  and  suggested  that  Mary  get  down 
"and  help  to  prospect  for  them  teeth."  As  Mary 
clambered  down  she  heard  a  fragment  of  the  ma 
triarch's  monologue,  which,  being  duly  expurgated 
for  polite  ears,  was  to  the  effect  that  she  would 
rather  take  ten  babies  anywhere  than  one  grown 
man,  and  that  as  for  getting  in  the  way,  hindering, 
obstructing,  and  being  a  nuisance,  generally  speak 
ing,  man  had  not  his  counterpart  in  the  scheme  of 
creation. 

"Talk  about  a  woman  bein'  at  the  bottom  of 
everything!"  sniffed  Mrs.  Yellett;  "I  be  so  sick  of 
always  hearin'  about '  the  woman  in  the  case !'  Half 
the  time  the  case  would  be  a  blame  sight  worse  if  it 
was  left  exclusive  to  the  men.  The  Book  of  Hiram 
says:  'A  skunk  may  have  his  good  p'ints,  but  few 
folks  is  takin'  the  risk  of  waitin'  round  to  get  ac 
quainted  with  'em.'" 

While  Mary  was  still  "prospecting,"  a  glad  cry 
roused  her  attention,  and  Leander  came  up  smiling, 
with  his  dental  treasures  nicely  adjusted. 

"Quit  smilin'  like  a  rattlesnake,  you  plumb  fool!" 
called  out  Mrs.  Yellett.  "Do  you  want  to  lose  'em 
again?" 

So,  curtailing  the  muscular  contraction  indicative 
of  his  pleasure,  the  Infidel  again  took'  his  place  among 
the  bed-quilts  and  the  journey  was  resumed. 

It  was  now  about  five  in  the  afternoon.  The 
heat,  which  had  been  oppressive  all  day,  suddenly 
relaxed  its  blistering  grip,  and  a  keenly  penetrating 
dampness,  not  unlike  that  of  a  sea-fog,  came  from 

26? 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

some  unknown  quarter  of  the  arid  wastes  and 
chilled  the  three  travellers  to  the  marrow.  The 
horses  flung  up  their  heads  and  sniffed  it,  rearing 
and  plunging  as  if  they  had  scent  of  something 
menacing.  Across  the  horizon  a  dark  cloud  scud 
ded,  no  bigger  than  your  hand. 

"Cloud-burst!"  announced  Mrs.  Yellett. 

"Cloud-burst,  all  right  enough,"  agreed  Leander, 
and  he  turned  up  his  coat-collar  in  simple  preparation 
for  the  deluge. 

There  flashed  into  Mary  Carmichaers  mind  a 
sentence  from  her  physical  geography  that  she  had 
been  obliged  to  commit  to  heart  in  her  school-days : 
"A  cloud-burst  is  a  sudden,  capricious  rainfall,  as 
if  the  whole  cloud  had  been  precipitated  at  once." 
She  wanted  to  question  her  companions  as  to  the 
accuracy  of  this  definition,  but  before  she  had  time 
to  frame  a  sentence  the  real  cloud-burst  came,  with 
a  splitting  crack  of  thunder;  then  the  lightning 
flashed  out  its  message  in  the  short -hand  of  the 
storm,  across  the  inky  blackness,  and  the  water  fell 
as  if  the  ocean  had  been  inverted.  In  the  fraction 
of  a  second  all  three  were  drenched  to  the  skin,  the 
water  pouring  from  them  in  sheets,  as  if  they  had 
been  some  slight  obstruction  in  the  path  of  a  water 
fall.  The  wagon  was  soon  in  a  deep  gully,  with 
frothing,  foaming,  yellow  water  up  to  the  hubs  of 
the  wheels.  Mrs.  Yellett,  like  some  goddess  of  the 
storm,  lashed  her  horses  forward  to  keep  them  from" 
foundering  in  the  mud,  and  the  wagon  creaked  and 
groaned  in  all  its  timbers  as  it  lurched  and  jolted 
through  the  angry  torrents. 

268 


A    CLOUD-BURST 

Each  moment  Mary  expected  to  be  flung  from  the 
barrels,  and  clung  till  her  finger-tips  were  white  and 
aching.  From  the  drenched  red  bedquilts  a  sticky 
crimson  trail  ran  over  the  barrel  heads,  as  well  as 
over  Mary's  hands,  face,  and  dress.  Still  they  forged 
on  through  the  deluge,  Mrs.  Yellett  shouting  and 
lashing  the  horses,  holding  them  erect  and  safe  with 
the  skill  she  never  lost.  The  fur  on  her  rabbit-skin 
cap  was  beaten  flat.  The  great,  wet  braids  had  fallen 
from  the  force  of  the  water  and  hung  straight  and 
black,  like  huge  snakes  uncoiled.  She  was  far  from 
losing  her  grip  on  either  the  horses  or  the  situation, 
and  from  the  inspiring  ring  of  her  voice  as  she  urged 
them  forward  it  was  plain  that  she  took  a  fierce 
joy  in  this  conflict  of  the  elements. 

It  was  bitterly  cold,  and  Mary  reflected  that  if 
Leander's  teeth  chattered  half  as  hard  as  hers  did, 
without  breaking,  they  must,  indeed,  be  of  excellent 
quality.  The  storm  began  to  abate,  and  the  sky 
became  lighter,  though  the  water  still  poured  in 
torrents.  As  soon  as  her  responsibility  as  driver 
left  her  time  to  speak,  Mrs.  Yellett  lost  no  time  in 
fastening  the  cloud-burst  to  Leander. 

"This  here  is  what  comes  of  settin'  up  your  back 
against  God  A'mighty  and  encouragin'  the  heathen 
and  the  infidel  in  his  idolatry.  I  might  'a'  knowed 
somethin'  would  happen,  takin'  you  along!  'And 
the  heathen  and  the  infidel  went  out,  and  the  Lord 
God  sent  a  cloud-burst  to  wet  him,'"  quoted  Mrs. 
Yellett  from  the  apocryphal  Scriptures  that  never 
yet  failed  to  furnish  her  with  verse  and  text. 

The  infidel,  from  his  side  of  the  wagon,  began  to 
18  269 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

display  agitation.  His  jaws  worked,  but  he  said 
nothing. 

"You  'ain't  lost  them  teeth  again,  have  you?" 

He  nodded  his  head  wretchedly. 

"  '  And  the  Lord  took  away  the  teeth  of  his  enemy, 
so  that  he  could  neither  bite  nor  talk,'  "  quoted  Mrs. 
Yellett  to  the  miserable  man,  who  could  make  no 
reply. 

"Wonder  you  wouldn't  see  the  foolishness  o' 
being  a  heathen  and  a  infidel,  and  turn  to  the 
Lord!  You  'ain't  got  no  teeth,  and  it  takes  your 
wife  to  herd  you.  'And  the  Lord  multiplied  the 
tribulations  of  his  enemy.'  You  got  no  more  show 
standin'  up  agin  the  Lord  than  an  insect  would  have 
standin'  up  agin  me." 

She  had  Leander,  at  last,  just  where  she  wanted 
him.  He  was  forced  to  listen,  and  he  could  make 
no  reply.  She  alternately  abused  him  for  his  lack 
of  faith  and  urged  him  to  repentance.  Leander 
raged,  gesticulated,  turned  his  back  on  her,  mouthed, 
and  finally  put  his  fingers  in  his  ears.  But  nothing 
stemmed  the  tide  of  Mrs.  Yellett's  eloquence;  it 
was  as  inexhaustible  and  as  remorseless  as  the 
cloud-burst. 

It  continued  bitterly  cold,  even  after  the  rain  had 
stopped  falling,  and  the  heap  of  sodden  bedclothes 
furnished  no  protection  against  the  chilling  damp 
ness.  It  was  growing  dark;  there  was  no  red  in  the 
sunset,  only  a  streak  of  vivid  orange  along  the 
horizon,  chill  and  clear  as  the  empty,  soulless  flame 
of  burning  paper.  There  were  no  deep,  glowing 
coals,  no  amethystine  opalescence,  fading  into  gold 

270 


A    CLOUD-BURST 

and  violet.  All  was  cold  and  subdued,  and  the 
scrub  pines  on  the  mountain-tops  stood  out  sharply 
against  this  cold  background  like  an  etching  on 
yellow  paper. 

Mrs.  Yellett's  self -inspired  scriptural  maxims  were 
discontinued  after  a  while,  either  because  she  could 
think  of  no  more,  or  because  the  rain-soaked, 
shivering,  chattering  object  towards  which  they 
were  directed  was  too  abject  to  inspire  further 
efforts.  Leander  huddled  on  the  barrel  that  was 
farthest  from  Mrs.  Yellett,  and  wrapped  himself  in 
the  soaked  red  bedquilt.  The  dye  smeared  his 
face  till  he  looked  like  an  Indian  brave  ready  for 
battle,  but  there  was  no  further  suggestion  of  the 
fighting  red  man  in  the  utter  desolation  of  his 
attitude.  Mary  Carmichael,  on  her  barrel,  shivered 
with  grim  patience  and  longed  for  a  cup  of  tea.  Only 
Mrs.  Yellett  gave  no  sign  of  anxiety  or  discomfort; 
she  drove  along,  sometimes  whistling,  sometimes 
swearing,  erect  as  an  Indian,  and  to  all  appearances 
as  oblivious  of  cold  and  wet  as  if  she  were  in  her 
own  home. 

The  gathering  darkness  into  which  the  horses  were 
plunging  was  mysterious  and  appalling.  Objects 
stood  out  enormously  magnified,  or  distorted  gro 
tesquely,  in  the  uncertain  light.  It  was  like  pene 
trating  into  the  real  Inferno,  like  stumbling  across 
the  inspiration  of  Dante  in  all  its  sinister  splendor. 
It  was  the  Inferno  of  his  dream  rather  than  the 
Inferno  of  his  poem;  it  had  the  ghastly  reality  of 
the  unreal. 

"It  wouldn't  surprise  me  if  we  had  a  smash-up  in 
271 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

Clear  Creek,"  said  Mrs.  Yellett,  just  by  way  of 
adding  her  quota  of  cheerful  speculation.  She 
ducked  her  head  and  whispered  in  Mary's  ear: 

"It's  all  along  of  me  hirin'  him!  I  wouldn't  be 
surprised  if  paw  died.  I'm  thinkin'  of  shakin'  him 
out  after  his  teeth.  'Take  not  up  with  the  enemy 
of  the  Lord,  lest  he  make  of  you  also  an  enemy.' " 

But  there  was  no  accent  of  apprehension  in  Mrs. 
Yellett 's  dismal  prognostications  of  the  evil  that 
might  befall  her  for  employing  Leander.  She  spoke 
more  with  the  air  of  one  who  produces  incidents  to 
prove  an  argument  than  of  one  who  anticipates  a 
calamity. 

Leander,  toothless  and  wretched,  sitting  on  the 
side  of  the  wagon,  began  to  show  symptoms  of  joy 
comparable  to  that  of  the  vanguard  of  the  Israelites, 
catching  their  first  glimpse  of  the  Promised  Land. 
Touching  Mary  Carmichael  on  the  shoulder,  he 
pointed  to  a  white  tent  and  the  remains  of  a  camp- 
fire.  Already  Mrs.  Yellett  had  begun  to  "Hallo, 
Ben!"  But  Ben  was  at  work  at  the  vat,  which  was 
still  a  quarter  of  a  mile  further  up  the  mountain ;  so 
Mrs.  Yellett,  throwing  the  reins  to  Leander  and 
bidding  him  turn  out  the  horses,  lost  no  time  in 
building  a  fire,  putting  on  coffee,  and  making  her 
little  party  comfortable.  So  various  was  her  ef 
ficiency  that  she  seemed  no  less  at  home  in  these 
simple  domestic  tasks  than  when  guiding  her  horses, 
goddess-like,  through  the  cloud-burst.  And  Mary 
Carmichael,  succumbing  gradually  to  the  revivifying 
influence  of  the  fire  and  the  hot  coffee,  acknowledged 
honestly  to  herself  a  warmth  of  affection  for  her 

272 


A    CLOUD-BURST 

hostess  and  for  the  atmosphere  Mrs.  Yellett  created 
about  her  that  made  even  Virginia  and  her  aunts 
seem  less  the  only  pivot  of  rational  existence.  She 
felt  that  she  had  come  West  with  but  one  eye,  as  it 
were,  and  countless  prejudices,  whereas  her  powers 
of  vision  were  fast  becoming  increased  a  hundred 
fold.  How  very  tame  life  must  be,  she  reflected, 
as  she  sat  smiling  to  herself,  to  those  who  did  not 
know  Mrs.  Yellett,  how  over-serious  to  those  who 
did  not  know  Leander!  Yet,  after  all,  she  knew 
that  the  real  basis  of  her  readjusted  vision  was  her 
brief  but  illuminating  acquaintance  with  Judith 
Rodney.  To  Mary,  freed  for  the  first  time  in  her 
life  from  the  most  elegantly  provincial  of  surround 
ings,  Judith  seemed  the  incarnation  of  all  the 
splendor  and  heroism  of  the  West.  And  in  the 
glow  of  her  enthusiasm  she  decided  then  and  there 
not  to  abandon  the  Yellett  educational  problem  till 
she  should  have  solved  it  successfully.  She  might 
not  be  born  to  valiant  achievement,  like  these 
sturdy  folk  about  her,  but  she  might  as  well  prove 
to  them  that  an  Eastern  tenderfoot  was  not  all 
feebleness  and  inefficiency. 

"Leander!"  called  Mrs.  Yellett.     "Just  act  as  if 
you  was  to  home  and  wash  up  these  dishes." 


XVIII 

FORESHADOWED 

A  ADA  awoke,  knowing  what  was  to  happen. 
She  had  dreamed  of  it,  just  before  daylight, 
and  lay  in  bed  stupefied  by  the  horror  of  it,  living, 
again  and  again,  through  each  frightful  detail.  It 
had  happened — there,  in  the  very  room,  and  before 
the  children;  the  noise  of  it  had  startled  them;  and 
then  she  woke  and  knew  she  had  been  dreaming. 
In  the  dream  the  noise  had  wakened  the  children — 
when  it  really  happened  they  must  never  know. 
It  wouldn't  be  fair  to  them;  they  needed  a  "clean 
start." 

What  had  she  done  to  keep  them  quiet?  There 
had  been  a  thunderous  knocking  at  the  door.  She 
had  expected  it  and  was  prepared;  because  the  lock 
was  feeble,  she  had  shoved  the  old  brown  bureau 
against  the  door. 

Nothing  had  happened.  What  a  fool  she  was  to 
lie  there  and  think  of  it!  There  was  the  brown 
bureau  against  the  wall;  she  could  hear  the  deep 
breathing  of  Jim  in  the  room  beyond.  Jim  had 
been  unequal  to  the  task  of  conventionally  going 
to  bed  the  night  before,  and  she  had  put  a  pillow 
under  his  head  and  a  quilt  over  him.  She  was  the 

274 


FORESHADOWED 

last  woman  in  the  world  to  worry  about  Jim,  drunk, 
or  to  nag  him  for  it  when  sober.  But  she  didn't  like 
the  children  to  see  him  that  way. 

What  was  it  that  she  had  done  to  quiet  the  children 
when  "they"  rode  up?  She  had  done  something 
and  they  had  gone  to  sleep  again,  and  she — and  she 
— oh  no,  it  hadn't  happened.  What  a  fool  she  was 
to  lie  there  thinking!  There  were  -the  children  to 
rouse  and  dress,  and  breakfast  to  cook,  and  Jim — 
Jim  would  be  feeling  pretty  mean  this  morning; 
he'd  like  a  good  cup  of  coffee.  She  was  glad  he  was 
alive  to  make  coffee  for. 

She  got  up  and,  in  the  uncertainty  bred  of  the 
dream,  felt  the  brown  bureau,  felt  it  hungrily,  almost 
incredulously.  The  brown  bureau  had  been  pushed 
against  the  door  when  they  had  come,  and  knocked 
and  knocked.  Then  they  had  thundered  with  the 
butts  of  their  six-shooters,  and  the  children  had 
wakened,  and  she  had  called  out  to  them : 

"Sh-sh!  It's  only  a  bad  dream.  Mammy  will 
give  you  some  dough  to  bake  to-morrow." 

And  she  had  gone  to  press  her  face  flat  to  the 
thin  wall,  and  call,  "For  God's  sake,  don't  wake  the 
children!" 

And  they  had -called  out,  "Let  him  come  out 
quiet,  then." 

And  then  she  could  feel  that  they  put  their 
shoulders  to  the  door — the  weather-beaten  door — 
with  its  crazy  lock  that  didn't  half  catch.  The 
brown  bureau  had  spun  across  the  floor  like  a  top, 
and  they  had  crowded  in.  Then  she  had  done 
something  to  quiet  the  children — it  was  queer  that 

275 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

she  could  not  remember  what  it  was,  when  every 
thing  else  in  the  dream  still  lived  within  her,  horribly 
distinct  and  real. 

What  a  fool  she  was,  with  Jim  asleep  in  the  next 
room;  she  would  not  think  about  it  another  min 
ute.  She  began  to  dress,  but  her  fingers  were  heavy, 
and  the  vague  oppression  of  nightmare  blocked  her 
efficiency.  Repeatedly  she  would  detect  herself  sub 
consciously  brooding  over  some  one  of  the  links  in 
that  pitiless  memory  —  what  they  had  said  to  Jim ; 
his  undaunted  replies;  how  she  had  left  him  and 
gone  into  the  next  room  because  Jim  had  told  her  to. 

She  called  the  children,  but  the  sight  of  them, 
happy  and  flushed  with  sleep,  did  not  reassure  her. 

"Mammy,"  said  Topeka,  eldest  of  the  family, and 
lately  on  the  invalid  list,  the  victim  of  a  cactus 
thorn,  "my  toe's  all  well;  can  I  go  barefoot?" 

"Topeka  Rodney,  what  kind  of  feet  do  you 
expect  to  have  when  you  are  a  young  lady,  if  you 
run  barefoot  now?" 

Topeka,  sitting  on  the  side  of  the  bed,  with  tousled 
hair,  put  her  small  feet  together  and  contemplated 
them.  The  toe  was  still  suspiciously  inflamed  for 
perfect  convalescence,  although  Topeka,  with  a 
Spartan  courage  that  won  her  a  place  in  the  annals 
of  household  valor,  had  the  day  before  allowed 
her  mother  to  pick  out  with  a  needle  the  torturing 
cactus  thorn,  scorning  to  shed  a  tear  during  the 
operation,  though  afterwards  she  had  taken  the 
piece  of  dried  apple  that  was  offered  her  and  de 
voured  it  to  the  last  bite,  as  only  just  compensation 
for  her  sufferings. 

276 


FORESHADOWED 

"Dimmy  dot  a  tore  toe,  too."  But  Jimmy 
showed  a  strange  reticence  about  offering  proofs  of 
his  affliction.  At  the  peril  of  his  equilibrium,  he 
clasped  the  allegedly  injured  member  in  his  chubby 
hand  and  rolled  over  on  the  bed  in  apparent 
anguish. 

''Less  see,  Jimmy,"  asked  his  mother,  anxiously. 

"  Don't  bleeve  him,  mammy.  He  'ain't  ever  cried. 
He'd  a  cried,  for  sure,  if  his  toe  was  sore."  At  the 
age  of  five,  little  Judith,  namesake  of  her  aunt,  was 
something  of  a  doubting  Thomas. 

"Let  mammy  see,  Jimmy,"  and  Alida  bent  over 
her  son  and  heir. 

"Doth  Dimmy  det  any  apple?"  The  wee  man 
sometimes  succeeded  in  making  terms  with  his 
mother,  when  the  other  children  were  not  present. 
Though  feeling  himself  a  trifle  over-confident,  he 
held  the  disputed  toe  with  the  air  of  one  keeping 
back  a  trump  card,  and  looked  his  mother  squarely 
in  the  eyes. 

She  struggled  with  the  temptation  to  give  him 
the  apple.  He  had  lifted  the  horrors  of  her  dream 
as  nothing  else  could  have  done,  but  she  answered 
him  with  quiet  firmness. 

"Jimmy  must  not  tell  stories." 

"Less  see,"  insisted  Topeka. 

"He  dassent,"  affirmed  Judith,  junior,  of  little 
faith. 

"  It  hurths  me,"  and  Jimmy  tried  to  squeeze  out  a 
tear.  "  It  hurths  me,  my  tore  toe!" 

His  mother  tipped  him  over  on  his  fat  little  back 
and  opened  the  chubby  hand  that  held  the  trump 

277 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

toe.  It  was  white  from  the  pressure  applied  by  the 
infant  dissembler,  but  there  was  no  trace  of  the 
treacherous  cactus  thorn.  She  gave  him  an  af 
fectionate  spank  and  went  into  the  kitchen  to  make 
coffee. 

"I  with  I  had  a  tore  toe,"  he  crooned,  quite  un 
abashed  at  the  discovery  of  his  deception.  "I  with 
I  toud  det  a  tore  toe  'thout  the  hurt." 

But  the  horror  of  the  dream  gripped  her  when 
she  found  herself  alone  in  the  kitchen;  and  she 
remembered  she  had  not  told  the  children  not  to 
go  into  the  room  where  their  father  was  sleeping. 
She  went  back  and  found  that  Jimmy  had  not  left 
his  post  on  the  side  of  the  bed,  where  he  still  regretted 
that  his  perfectly  well  toe  did  not  entitle  him  to 
gastronomic  consideration.  Topeka,  who  had  ar 
rived  at  an  age  where  little  girls,  in  the  first  sub 
conscious  attempt  at  adornment,  know  no  keener 
delight  than  plastering  their  heads  with  a  wet  hair 
brush,  till  they  present  an  appearance  of  slippery 
rotundity  equalled  only  by  a  peeled  onion,  put 
down  the  brush  with  guilty  haste  at  sight  of  her 
mother. 

"I'm  goin'  to  dress  him  soon  as  I've  done  my 
hair." 

"Any  one  think  you  was  goin'  to  be  married,  the 
time  you've  took  to  it." 

"It's  gettin'  so  long,"  urged  Topeka. 

"I  wouldn't  give  it  a  chance  to  grow  no  longer 
while  Jimmy  was  waitin'  to  get  dressed.  And  don't 
go  into  the  front  room.  Your  father's  gettin'  his 
sleep  out." 


FORESHADOWED 

Topeka  opened  her  round  eyes.  There  was  al 
ways  something  suspicious  about  that  sleep  her 
father  had  to  get  out,  but  she  felt  it  was  something 
she  must  not  ask  questions  about.  Her  mother 
lingered;  she  dreaded  to  be  alone  in  the  kitchen. 
The  little,  familiar  intimacies  between  herself  and 
her  children  scattered  the  horrors  of  the  dream 
which  would  come  back  to  her  when  she  was  again 
at  the  mercy  of  her  thoughts. 

"Judy,  s'pose  you  dress  Jimmy  this  morning!  I 
want  Topeka  to  help  me  get  breakfast." 

"  Yessum,"  said  Judith,  dutifully.  "  Is  he  to  have 
his  face  washed?" 

"He  certainly  is,  Judy.  I's  ashamed  to  have  you 
ask  such  a  question.  'Ain't  you  all  been  brought  up 
to  have  your  faces  washed?" 

But  young  Judith  seemed  disinclined  to  take  up 
this  phase  of  family  superiority.  She  merely  in 
quired  further: 

"Is  he  to  have  it  washed  with  soap,  maw?" 

"  He  shore  is.  Any  one  would  think  you  had  been 
born  and  raised  in  Arizony  or  Nebrasky,  to  hear 
you  talk.  I'm  plumb  ashamed  of  you,  Judy." 

"But,  'deed,  maw,  I  ain't  big  enough  to  wash 
his  face  with  soap.  It  takes  Topeka  to  hold  his 
head." 

The  subject  of  the  discussion  still  sat  on  the  edge 
of  the  bed,  a  small  lord  of  creation,  letting  his  women 
folk  arrange  among  themselves  who  should  minister 
to  his  wants.  As  an  instrument  of  torture  the  wash 
cloth,  in  the  hands  of  his  sister  Judy,  was  no  ignoble 
rival  of  the  cactus  thorn.  The  question  of  making 

279 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

terms  for  his  sufferings  again  appealed  to  him  in  the 
light  of  a  feasible  business  proposition. 

" Muvvy,  tan't  I  have  the  apple?  Judy  hurts  me 
a  lot  when  she  wathes  my  face  wis  soap." 

"Yes,  you  can  have  the  apple,  honey;  and,  Judy, 
you  be  gentle  with  him.  Don't  rub  his  features  up, 
and  be  careful  and  don't  get  soap  in  his  eyes." 

"  No'm."  And  Judy  heroically  stifled  the  longing 
to  slick  her  hair,  like  Topeka's,  with  the  wet  hair 
brush.  There  were  easier  tasks  than  washing  the 
face  of  her  younger  brother. 

When  Topeka  and  her  mother  were  alone  in  the 
kitchen,  Topeka  grinding  the  coffee  and  all  uncon 
sciously  working  her  jaw  in  an  accompaniment  to 
the  coffee-mill,  her  mother  bent  over  her  and  said: 

"Did  you  dream  of  anything  last  night?" 

Topeka  simultaneously  stopped  working  the  coffee- 
mill  and  her  jaw,  and  regarded  her  mother  solemnly. 
She  did  not  remember  having  been  thus  questioned 
about  her  dreams  before. 

"No'm,"  she  answered,  after  laborious  considera 
tion.  But  something  in  her  mother's  face  held  her. 

"You're  sure  you  didn't  dream  nothing?" 

"Yes,  maw." 

"Did  Judy  or  Jim  say  that  they  dreamed  any 
thing?" 

"Jim  said  he  dreamed  he  had  a  pup." 

"Was  that  all?     Think  hard,  Topeka!" 

Topeka  held  the  handle  of  the  coffee-mill  in  her 
hand;  her  jaw  continued  to  work  with  the  labor  of 
her  mental  process.  "  I've  thought  hard,  maw,  and 
all  he  told  was  about  the  pup." 

280 


FORESHADOWED 

Alida  went  back  to  her  bedroom  and  again  felt 
the  brown  bureau.  "What's  the  matter  with  me, 
anyhow?  It's  the  lonesomeness,  and  they  bein'  agin 
Jim  the  way  they  are.  God,  this  country's  hard  on 
women  and  horses!" 

When  breakfast  was  over,  and  young  Jim  had 
received  the  reward  of  his  valor  in  presenting  a 
brave  face  to  his  ablution,  and  Judith  the  reward 
of  her  skill,  the  evidence  of  which  almost  prevented 
the  young  martyr  from  smiling  while  he  enjoyed  his 
treat,  their  mother  sent  them  all  to  play  in  the 
canon.  She  told  them  not  to  come  home  till  she 
should  come  for  them,  and  if  any  one  should  ask 
about  their  father,  to  say  that  he  was  away  from 
home.  And  this,  as  well  as  the  mystery  of  her 
father's  "getting  his  sleep  out,"  roused  some  slight 
apprehension  in  Topeka,  who  was  old  for  her  age. 
They  were  seldom  sent  to  the  canon  to  play.  Topeka 
looked  at  her  mother  as  she  had  when  questioned 
about  the  dream,  but  there  was  no  further  con 
fidence  between  them. 

"You  do  as  your  sister  Topeka  tells  you,  and 
remember  what  I  said  about  your  papa,"  Alida  said 
to  the  younger  children.  Jim  and  Judy  clasped  each 
other's  hands  in  mute  compact  at  the  edict.  Their 
sister  Topeka  had  a  real  genius  for  authority;  they 
were  minded  all  too  well  when  she  swayed  the 
maternal  sceptre  vicariously. 

Alida  made  fresh  coffee  for  Jim  when  the  children 
had  gone.  She  made  it  carefully;  there  was  this 
morning,  unconsciously,  about  each  little  thing  that 

281 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

she  did  for  him,  the  solemnity  of  a  funeral  rite. 
Struggle  as  she  would,  she  couid  not  divest  her 
mind  of  the  conviction  that  what  she  did  this  day 
she  did  for  the  dead.  She  would  go  to  the  door  and 
listen  to  his  breathing,  and  tell  herself  that  she  was  a 
fool,  then  wring  her  hands  at  the  remembrance  of 
the  dream. 

As  he  tossed,  half  waking,  she  heard  him  groan 
and  curse  the  cattle-men  with  oaths  that  made  her 
glad  she  had  sent  the  children  from  home.  Then 
she  bent  over  him  and  woke  him  from  his  uneasy 
slumber. 

"Jim,  don't  you  want  me  to  bathe  your  head? 
And  here's  some  nice,  hot  coffee  all  ready  for  you." 

Jim  woke  slowly  to  a  realization  of  his  troubles 
and  his  blessings.  His  wife  was  bathing  his  head 
with  hands  that  trembled.  Not  always  had  she 
greeted  his  indiscretions  with  such  loving  forbear 
ance.  He  noticed,  though  his  waking  faculties  were 
not  over-keen,  that  her  face  was  pale  and  frightened, 
and  that  her  eyes,  meeting  his,  held  a  dumb, 
measureless  affection. 

"What  th'  hell  are  you  babying  me  for?"  But 
his  roughness  did  not  deceive  her  woman's  wits. 
He  was  not  getting  the  lecture  he  anticipated,  and 
this  was  his  way  of  showing  that  he  was  not  em 
barrassed  by  her  kindness.  The  morning  sunlight 
was  pitilessly  frank  in  its  exposure  of  the  grim  pinch 
of  poverty  in  the  mean  little  room,  but  the  woman 
was  unconscious  of  these  things;  what  she  saw  was 
that  Jim,  the  reckless,  Jim,  the  dare-devil  terror  of 
the  country,  Jim,  who  had  married  and  settled  with 

282 


FORESHADOWED 

her  into  home-keeping  respectability,  Jim,  who  had 
struggled  with  misfortune  and  fallen,  had,  young  as 
he  was,  lost  every  look  of  youth;  that  hope  had  gone 
from  his  dull  eyes,  and  that  his  face  had  become 
drawn  until  the  death's-head  grinned  beneath  the 
scant  padding  of  flesh.  But  he  was  to-day,  as 
always,  the  one  man  in  the  world  for  her.  In 
making  a  world  of  their  own  and  reducing  their 
parents  to  supplementary  consideration,  their  chil 
dren,  whom  she  had  sent  away  that  she  might  be 
alone  with  him,  had  given  a  different  quality  to  the 
love  of  this  pair  that  had  known  so  many  curi 
ous  vicissitudes.  The  responsibilities  of  parenthood 
had  placed  them  on  a  tenderer,  as  well  as  a  securer 
footing ;  and  as  she  saw  his  age  and  weariness, 
he  recognized  hers,  and  both  felt  a  self -accusing 
twinge. 

"  That's  a  blamed  good  cup  of  coffee,"  he  said, 
by  way  of  relieving  the  tension  that  had  crept  into 
the  situation.  "Any  one  would  think  you  was  set- 
tin'  your  cap  for  me  'stead  of  us  being  married  for 
years." 

Alida  sighed.  "It's  better  to  end  than  to  begin 
like  this,"  she  said,  in  the  far-away  voice  of  one  who 
thinks  aloud.  The  word  "end"  had  slipped  out 
before  she  realized  what  she  was  saying,  and  the 
knowledge  haunted  her  as  an  omen.  She  glanced 
at  him  quickly,  to  see  if  he  had  noticed  it. 

"Why  did  you  say  end?"  He  saw  that  her  eyes 
were  full  of  tears  and  chafed  her.  "You  ain't 
thinking  of  divorcing  me,  like  Mountain  Pink  done 
Bosky?" 

283 


JUDITH    OP   THE    PLAINS 

"Oh,  Jim,"  she  said,  and  her  face  was  all 
aquiver,  "  I  never  could  divorce  you,  no  matter  what 
you  done."  And  then  the  grim  philosophy  of  the 
plains -woman  asserted  itself.  "I  never  can  un 
derstand  why  women  feed  their  pride  on  their 
heart's  blood;  it  never  was  my  way." 

He  did  not  like  to  remember  that  he  had  given 
her  cause  for  a  way.  "There's  a  lot  of  women 
as  wouldn't  exactly  regard  me  as  a  Merino,  or  a 
Southdown,  either;"  he  gulped  the  coffee  to  ease 
the  tightness  in  his  throat. 

"They'd  be  women  of  no  judgment,  then,"  she 
said,  with  conviction. 

Jim's  head  was  tilted  back,  resting  in  the  palm 
of  his  hand.  His  profile,  sharpened  by  anxiety, 
more  than  suggested  his  quarter  -  strain  of  Sioux 
blood.  He  might  almost  have  been  old  Chief 
Flying  Hawk  himself,  as  he  looked  steadily  at  the 
woman  who  had  been  a  young  girl  and  reckless, 
when  he  had  been  a  boy  and  reckless;  who  had 
paid  her  woman's  penalty  and  come  into  her  wom 
an's  kingdom;  who  had  made  a  man  of  him  by  the 
mystery  of  her  motherhood,  and  who  had  un 
complainingly  gone  with  him  into  the  wilderness 
and  become  an  alien  and  an  outcast. 

These  things  unmanned  him  as  the  sight  of  the 
gallows  and  the  rope  for  his  hanging  could  not  have 
done.  Shielding  himself  with  an  affected  roughness, 
he  asked: 

"What  the  hell's  the  matter  with  you?  I've  been 
drinking  like  a  beast  of  an  Indian,  and  you  give  me 
coffee  instead  of  a  tongue-lashing." 

284 


FORESHADOWED 

The  color  had  all  gone  out  of  her  face.  She 
gasped  the  words: 

"Jim,  I  dreamed  it  last  night  —  they  came  for 
you!" 

She  cowered  at  the  recollection. 

"Did  they  get  me?"  he  asked.  There  was  no 
surprise  in  his  tone.  He  spoke  as  one  who  knew 
the  answer. 

"Yes,  the  children  saw.     The  noise  woke  them." 

"You  mustn't  let  'em  see,  when — they  come. 
They've  a  right  to  a  fair  start ;  we  didn't  get  it,  old 
girl." 

"The  children  gave  it  to  us,"  and  she  faced  him. 

"  Yes,  yes,  but  we  want  them  to  have  it  from  the 
start,  like  good  folks." 

They  looked  into  each  other's  eyes.  The  memory 
of  dead  and  gone  madness  twinkled  there  a  moment, 
then  each  remembered: 

"You  must  hurry,  Jim.  You  haven't  a  moment 
to  lose.  I  dreamed  it  was  to  be  to-night — they'll 
come  to-night!" 

"The  game's  all  up,  old  girl!  If  I  had  a  month  I 
couldn't  get  away.  Morrison's  been  looking  for  me 
over  to  the  Owl  Creek  Range;  he's  back — Stevens 
told  me  yesterday.  He'll  be  heading  here  soon. 
The  price  on  my  head  is  a  strain  on  friendship." 

"Have  the  sheep-men  gone  back  on  you?" 

"Yes,  damn  them!  A  thousand  dollars  is  big 
money,  and  they've  had  hard  luck!" 

"They  deserve  it;  I  hope  every  herd  in  the  State 
dies  of  scab." 

"There  wasn't  a  scabby  sheep  in  our  bunch. 
19  283 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

What  a  sight  they  were,  loaded  with  tallow!  There 
wasn't  one  of  them  that  couldn't  have  weathered 
a  blizzard ;  they  could  have  lived  on  their  own  tal 
low  for  a  month." 

She  tried  to  divert  his  attention  from  his  lost 
flock.  When  he  began  to  talk  about  them  the 
despair  of  his  loss  drove  him  to  drink.  She  was 
ground  between  the  millstones  of  his  going  or  stay 
ing.  If  he  stayed  they  would  come  for  him ;  if  he 
went,  they  would  apprehend  him  before  he  was  ten 
miles  from  the  house. 

"Jim,  we  got  to  think.  If  there's  a  chance  in  a 
thousand  that  you  can  get  away,  you  got  to  take  it ; 
if  there  ain't,  the  children  mustn't  know.  We  got 
to  think  it  out!" 

"There  ain't  a  chance  in  a  thousand,  old  girl. 
There  ain't  one  in  a  million.  They're  circling  round 
in  the  hills  out  here  now,  waitin'  for  me,  like 
buzzards  waitin'  for  the  eyes  of  a  dyin'  horse." 

She  rocked  herself,  and  the  clutching  fingers  left 
white  marks  on  her  face,  but  the  eyes  that  met  his 
glittered  tearless: 

"Then  there  ain't  nothing  left  but  to  face  it  like  a 
man?" 

"That's  all  there  be."  He  might  have  been  giving 
an  opinion  on  a  matter  in  which  he  had  no  interest. 

"Then  there  ain't  no  use  in  our  having  any  more 
talk  about  it?" 

'  'Tain't  just  what  you'd  call  an  agreeable  sub 
ject,"  he  answered,  with  the  sinister  humor  of  the 
frontiersman  who  has  learned  to  make  a  crony  of 
death. 

286 


FORESHADOWED 

She  was  tempted  to  kiss  him — they  were  not  given 
to  demonstrations,  this  pair — then  decided  it  were 
kinder  to  him,  less  suggestive  of  what  they  an 
ticipated,  not  to  deviate  from  their  undemonstra 
tive  marital  routine. 

"Do  you  want  your  breakfast  now?" 

"I  guess  you  might  bring  it  along." 

And  for  the  same  reason  that  she  refrained  from 
kissing  him,  she  repressed  a  desire  to  wring  the  neck 
of  a  young  broiler  and  cook  it  for  his  breakfast, 
remembering  that  she  had  heard  they  gave  folks 
pretty  much  what  they  wanted  when  they  wouldn't 
want  it  long.  So  Jim  got  his  usual  breakfast  of 
bacon,  uncooked  canned  tomatoes,  soda-biscuit,  and 
coffee.  She  sat  with  him  while  he  ate,  but  they  spoke 
no  more  of  "them"  or  of  how  soon  "they"  might  be 
expected.  She  told  him  that  young  Jim  had  pre 
tended  that  morning  that  he  had  a  cactus  thorn  in 
his  foot,  so  that  he  might  have  a  piece  of  dried 
apple.  And  old  Jim,  in  an  excess  of  parental 
fondness  and  pride,  said:  "The  damned  little  liar, 
he'll  get  to  Congress  yet!" 

But  the  children  were  a  dangerous  topic  for  over 
strained  nerves  at  this  particular  time,  so  Alida 
told  Jim  that  she  had  put  the  black  hen  to  set  and 
she  thought  they'd  have  some  chickens  at  last. 
Jim  smoked  while  Alida  washed  the  dishes,  and  when 
Jim's  back  was  turned  she  examined  the  lock  on  the 
door — a  good  push  would  open  it.  Then  she  looked 
at  the  brown  bureau,  and  the  recklessness  of  de 
spair  came  into  her  eyes.  In  the  room  beyond,  Jim 
was  reading  a  two  weeks'  old  newspaper  and  smok- 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

ing.  He  looked  like  a  lazy  ranchman  taking  his 
ease. 

As  she  went  about  her  household  tasks  that 
morning,  Alida  noticed  things  as  she  had  never 
noticed  them  before.  A  sunbeam  came  through 
the  shutterless  window  of  the  house  and  writhed 
and  quivered  on  the  wall  as  if  it  were  a  live  thing. 
She  read  a  warning  in  this,  and  in  the  color  of  the 
sun,  that  was  red,  like  blood,  and  in  the  whirr  of  the 
grasshoppers,  that  was  sinister  and  threatening. 
The  creeks  had  dried,  and  their  slimy  beds  crept 
along  the  willows  like  sluggish  snakes.  Gaunt  range- 
cattle  bellowed  in  their  thirst,  and  the  parched 
earth  crackled  beneath  the  sun  that  hung  above  the 
house  like  a  flaming  disk.  Sometimes  she  sank 
beneath  the  burden  of  it;  then  she  would  wring 
her  hands  and  call  on  God  to  help  them;  they  were 
beyond  human  power.  She  and  Jim  were  alone  all 
the  morning;  they  did  not  again  refer  to  what  they 
knew  would  happen.  He  read  his  old  paper  and  she 
put  her  house  in  order.  She  did  it  with  especial  care. 
It  was  meet  to  have  things  seemly  in  the  house  of 
the  dead.  And  every  time  she  glanced  at  Jim 
she  repressed  the  desire  to  fling  herself  on  his  breast 
and  cry  out  the  anguish  that  consumed  her. 

At  noon  she  brought  the  children  home  to  dinner, 
and  afterwards  Jim  taught  them  to  throw  the  lasso 
and  played  buffalo  with  them.  Alida  did  not  trust 
herself  to  watch  them;  she  stayed  in  the  kitchen 
and  saw  the  sunbeam  grow  pale  with  the  waning 
of  the  day,  the  day  whose  minutes  dragged  like 
lead,  yet  had  rushed  from  her,  leaving  her  the  night 

288 


FORESHADOWED 

to  face.  At  sundown  she  cooked  supper,  but  she  no 
longer  knew  what  she  did.  A  crazy  agility  had 
taken  possession  of  her  and  she  spun  about  the 
kitchen,  doing  the  same  errand  many  times,  finding 
herself  doing  always  something  different  from  that 
she  had  set  about  doing.  The  molten  day  was 
burning  itself  out  like  a  fever;  hot  gusts  of  air  beat 
up  from  the  earth,  but  the  woman  who  waited 
felt  chilled  to  the  marrow,  and  took  a  cloak  down 
from  a  peg  and  wrapped  it  about  her  while  she 
waited  for  the  biscuit  to  bake.  At  supper  they  sat 
down  together,  the  man  and  his  wife  and  their 
three  children.  The  children  were  in  fine  spirits 
from  the  fun  they  had  had  that  afternoon.  Never 
had  daddy  been  so  nice  to  them.  He  had  taught 
Topeka  to  throw  the  lasso  so  well  that  she  had 
caught  the  cat  once  and  little  Jim  twice ;  and  daddy 
had  played  he  was  a  buffalo  and  had  charged  them 
all  with  his  head  down,  till  they  screamed  in  terror. 
But  daddy  seemed  more  quiet  through  the  meal,  and 
once  mother  started  up  and  cried: 

"What's  that?" 

She  ran  to  the  door  with  her  hand  pressed  to  her 
side,  but  daddy  called  after  her: 

"Don't  you  know  the  cowards  better  than  that? 
They'll  wait  for  nightfall." 

But  these  things  had  not  worried  the  children, 
with  their  heads  full  of  playing  buffalo  and  throwing 
the  lariat. 

"Jim,"  said  his  father,  before  they  went  to  bed, 
"remember  you  are  the  man  of  the  family."  But 
young  Jim  was  already  nodding  with  sleep.  Topeka 

289 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

and  Judith  were  sleepy,  too;  they  kissed  their  father 
and  were  glad  to  go  to  bed. 

The  night  began  menacingly  to  close  over  the 
wilderness.  Where  the  sun  had  hung  above  the 
mountain  a  moment  before  there  glowed  a  great 
pool  of  red  that  dripped  across  the  blackness  in  faint 
tricklings.  The  outlines  of  the  foot  -  hills  loomed 
huge,  formless,  uncouth.  In  the  half-light  it  seem 
ed  a  world  struggling  in  the  birth-throes.  All  day 
the  dry,  burning  heat  had  quivered  over  the  desert, 
like  hot-air  waves  flickering  over  a  bed  of  live  coals, 
and  now  the  very  earth  seemed  to  palpitate  with  the 
intensity  of  its  fever.  The  bellowing  of  the  thirst- 
maddened  cattle  had  not  stopped  with  the  twilight 
that  brought  no  dew  to  slake  their  parched  throats. 
In  the  hills  the  coyotes  wailed  like  lost  souls.  It 
was  night  bereft  of  benisons,  day  made  frightful  by 
darkness.  All  the  heat  of  a  cycle  of  desert  summers 
seemed  concentrated  in  that  house  in  the  valley 
where  the  man  and  his  wife  waited.  Each  sound  of 
the  desert  night  Alida  translated  into  the  trampling 
of  horses'  feet;  then,  as  the  sound  would  die  away, 
or  prove  to  be  but  some  night  noise  of  the  wilderness, 
the  pallor  would  lose  its  pinch  on  her  features,  and 
she  would  stare  into  her  husband's  face  with  eyes 
that  did  not  see.  Jim  smoked  his  pipe  and  refilled 
it,  smoked  and  filled  again,  but  gave  no  sign  of  the 
object  of  his  waiting. 

"Jim,"  she  said,  when  the  clock  had  struck  ten, 
then  eleven,  "I  am  going  to  fasten  up  the  house." 

"Do  you  hear  them?"  he  asked,  without  emotion, 
but  as  one  who  deferred  to  the  finer  senses  of  women. 

290 


FORESHADOWED 

She  shook  her  head,  not  trusting  herself  to  speak. 

He  looked  at  the  door  that  was  shrunken  and 
warped  from  the  heat  till  it  barely  held  together, 
and  there  was  no  measure  to  the  tenderness  he  put 
into: 

"Oh,  you  poor  little  fool,  do  you  think  you  could 
keep  them  out  by  fastening  that?" 

"Jim,  I  must,"  and  her  voice  broke.  "  They  may 
think  you  are  not  here,  that  it's  only  me  and  the 
children,  and  that's  why  the  house  is  fastened." 
She  got  up  and  began  to  move  about  as  though 
her  thoughts  scourged  her  to  action,  even  if  futile. 
He  shook  the  ashes  from  his  pipe. 

"Do  anything  you  blame  please,"  he  said,  more 
by  way  of  humoring  her  than  from  faith  in  her  strat 
agem.  He  felt  strong  enough  to  face  his  destiny,  to 
meet  it  in  a  way  worthy  of  his  mother's  people. 

Alida  seemed  under  a  spell  in  her  preparations 
for  the  night.  Each  thing  she  did  as  she  had  done 
it  in  her  dream  the  night  before;  it  was  as  if  she 
were  constrained  by  a  power  greater  than  her  will 
to  fulfil  a  sinister  prophecy.  Yet  now  and  then 
she  would  stop  and  wonder  if  she  might  not  break 
the  spell  by  doing  things  differently  from  the  way 
she  had  dreamed  them.  Her  hand  grasped  the 
knob  of  the  door  uncertainly,  and  she  swung  it  to 
and  fro  on  its  creaking  hinges,  while  her  mind  seemed 
likewise  to  sway  hither  and  thither.  Should  she 
fasten  the  door  and  push  the  bureau  against  it,  as  it 
had  been  in  the  dream,  or  should  she  leave  door 
and  windows  gaping  wide  for  them?  And  then,  as 
one  who  walks  and  does  familiar  things  in  sleep, 

291 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

she  shut  the  door  and  turned  the  key.  Jim  smiled 
at  her,  but  she  could  no  longer  look  at  him.  One 
of  the  children  wailed  fretfully  from  the  room  be 
yond.  Sleep  had  become  a  scourge  in  the  stifling 
heat.  One  by  one  she  lowered  the  windows  and 
nailed  them  down ;  then  she  dragged  the  brown  bu 
reau  against  the  door,  took  the  brace  of  six-shooters 
from  the  wall,  and  sat  down  with  Jim  to  wait. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do  with  them  toys?"  he 
asked,  as  he  saw  her  examine  the  chambers  of  one 
of  the  six-shooters. 

"You  ain't  going  to  let  yourself  be  caught  like 
a  rat  in  a  hole,  are  you?"  she  reproached  him. 

"  'Ain't  we  agreed  that  it's  best  to  keep  onpleasant 
family  matters  from  the  kids?"  He  smiled  at  her 
bravely.  "The  remembrance  of  what  we're  an- 
ticipatin'  ain't  going  to  help  young  Jim  to  get  to 
Congress  when  his  time  comes,  nor  it  ain't  going  to 
help  the  girls  get  good  husbands,  either.  This  here 
country  ain't  what  it  was  in  the  way  of  liberality 
since  it's  got  to  be  a  State." 

"Sh-sh-sh!"  she  said.  "Is  that  the  range-cattle 
stampedin*  after  water,  or  is  it — "  They  listened. 
The  furniture  in  the  room  crackled;  there  was  not 
a  fibre  of  it  to  which  the  resistless  heat  had  not 
penetrated.  On  the  range  the  cattle  bellowed  in 
their  thirst  -  torture ;  in  the  intervals  of  their  cries 
sounded  something  far  off,  but  regular  as  the  thump 
ing  of  a  ship's  screw.  The  woman  did  not  need  an 
answer  to  her  question.  The  steady  trampling  of 
hoofs  came  muffled  through  the  dead  air,  but  the 
sound  was  unmistakable.  She  put  her  arms  about 

292 


FORESHADOWED 

the  man's  neck  and  crushed  him  to  her  with  all  her 
woman  strength.  "Oh,  Jim,  you've  been  a  good 
man  to  me!" 

"Steady — steady."  He  strained  her  close  to  him. 
"They'd  be,  by  the  sound  of  them,  on  the  straight 
bit  of  road  now,  before  the  turn.  Soon  we'll  hear 
their  hoofs  ring  hollow  as  they  cross  the  plank 
bridge." 

His  plainsman's  faculty  was  as  keen  as  ever; 
his  calculation  of  the  horsemen's  distance  was  made 
as  though  he  were  the  least  concerned.  All  Alida's 
courage  had  gone,  with  the  dread  thing  at  hand. 
She  clung  to  him,  dazed. 

"They're  sober,  all  right  enough." 

"How  do  you  know?" 

"They'd  be  cursing  and  bellowing  if  they  were 
drunk." 

The  hoofs  rang  hollow  on  the  little  plank  bridge 
that  crossed  the  ditch  about  a  stone's-throw  from 
the  door.  Not  a  word  was  said  either  within  or 
without.  The  lynchers  seemed  to  have  drilled  for 
their  part;  there  was  no  whispering,  no  deferring 
to  a  leader.  On  they  came,  so  close  that  Jim  and 
Alida  could  hear  the  creaking  of  their  saddles. 
There  was  the  clank  of  spurs  and  the  straining  of 
leather  as  they  dismounted,  then  some  one  knocked 
at  the  door  till  the  warped  boards  rattled. 

Jim  could  feel  the  thudding  of  Alida's  heart  as 
she  clung  to  him,  but  when  the  knock  was  repeated 
a  new  courage  came  to  her,  and  she  left  Jim  and 
went  on  her  knees  close  to  the  outer  wall. 

"Jim,  is  that  you?"  she  called,  and  now  every 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

sense  was  trained  to  battle;  her  voice  had  even  a 
sleepy  cadence,  as  if  she  had  been  suddenly  roused. 

"That  won't  do  at  all,  Miz  Rodney.  We  know 
you  got  Jim  in  there,  just  as  certain  as  we're  out 
here,  and  we  want  him  to  come  out  and  we'll  do  the 
thing  square,  otherwise  he  can  take  the  con 
sequences." 

Jim  opened  his  mouth  to  speak,  but  she,  still  on 
her  knees  beside  the  wall,  gained  his  silence  by  one 
supplicating  gesture.  There  was  a  sleepy,  fretful 
cry  from  the  room  beyond — the  noise  had  roused 
one  of  the  children. 

"Sh-sh,  dear,"  she  called.  "It's  only  a  bad 
dream.  Go  to  sleep  again;  mother  is  here." 

Through  the  warped  door  came  sounds  of  the 
whispering  voices  without,  drowned  by  the  shriek 
ing  bellow  of  the  cattle.  There  was  not  a  breath 
of  air  in  the  suffocating  room.  Jim  bent  towards 
Alida: 

"I'm  goin  out  to  'em.  They'll  do  it  square,  over 
on  the  cotton-woods ;  this  rumpus  '11  only  wake  the 
kids." 

But  she  shook  her  head  imploringly,  putting  her 
finger  to  her  lips  as  a  sign  that  he  was  not  to  speak, 
and  he  had  not  the  heart  to  refuse,  though  knowing 
that  she  made  a  desperate  situation  worse. 

"  Gentlemen" — she  spoke  in  a  low,  distinct  voice — 
"Jim  ain't  here.  He's  been  away  from  home  five 
days.  There's  no  one  here  but  me  and  the  children ; 
you've  woke  them  up  and  frightened  them  by 
pounding  on  the  door.  I  ask  you  to  go  away." 

"If  he  ain't  in  there,  will  you  let  us  search  the 
294 


FORESHADOWED 

house?"  It  was  Henderson  that  spoke,  Henderson, 
foreman  of  the  "XXX"  outfit. 

"I  can't  have  them  frightened;  please  take  my 
word  and  go  away." 

11  Whas  er  matter,  muvvy?"  called  Judith,  sleepily. 
Young  Jim  was  by  this  time  crying  lustily.  Only 
Topeka  said  nothing.  With  the  precocity  of  a 
frontier  child,  she  half  realized  the  truth.  She  tried 
to  comfort  little  Jim,  though  her  teeth  chattered  in 
fear  and  she  felt  cold  in  the  hot,  still  room.  Then 
Judith  called  out,  "Make  papa  send  them  away." 

"Your  papa  ain't  here,  Judith."  But  the  fight 
had  all  gone  out  of  Alida's  voice;  it  was  the  groan 
of  an  animal  in  a  trap. 

"Where's  papa  gone  to?" 

"  Sh-sh,  Judith!     Topeka,  keep  your  sister  quiet." 

It  was  absolutely  still,  within  and  without,  for  a 
full  minute.  Then  Alida  heard  the  shoving  of 
shoulders  against  the  door.  Once,  twice,  thrice  the 
lock  resisted  them.  The  brown  bureau  spun  across 
the  room  like  a  child's  toy.  The  lynchers,  bursting 
in,  saw  Alida  with  her  arms  around  Jim.  When  the 
last  hope  had  gone  it  was  instinct  with  her  to  protect 
him  with  her  own  body. 

"  Go  into  the  kids,  old  girl,  this  is  no  place  for  you." 
And  there  was  that  in  his  voice  that  made  her  obey. 

Something  of  the  glory  of  old  Chief  Flying  Hawk, 
riding  to  battle,  was  in  the  face  of  his  grandson. 

"Remember,  the  children  ain't  to  know,"  he  said 
to  his  wife;  and  to  the  lynchers,  "Gentlemen,  I'm 
ready." 


XIX 

"ROCKED    BY   A    HEMPEN    STRING" 

AJDA  heard  the  mingled  sounds  of  footsteps 
and  hoofs  grow  fainter  on  the  trail.  The 
children  looked  at  her  to  tell  them  why  this  night 
was  different  from  all  others — what  was  happening. 
But  she  could  only  cower  among  them,  more  terrified 
than  they.  She  seemed  to  be  shrunken  from  the 
happenings  of  that  day.  They  hardly  knew  the 
little,  shrivelled,  gray  woman  who  looked  at  them 
with  unfamiliar  eyes.  Alida  gazed  at  the  little 
Judith,  and  there  was  something  in  her  mother's 
glance  that  made  the  little  one  hide  her  face  in  her 
sister's  shoulder.  Young  Judith  it  was  who  all  un 
wittingly  had  told  the  lynchers  that  her  father  was 
at  home,  and  in  Alida's  heart  there  was  towards  this 
child  a  blind,  unreasoning  hate.  Better  had  she 
never  been  born  than  live  to  do  this  thing! 

It  was  the  wee  man,  Jim,  who  first  began  to 
reflect  resentfully  on  this  intrusion  on  his  slumbers. 
He  had  been  sleeping  well  and  comfortably  when 
some  grown-ups  came  with  a  lot  of  noise,  and  his 
father  had  gone  away  with  them.  It  had  frightened 
him,  but  his  mother  was  here,  and  why  should  she 
not  put  him  to  sleep  again? 

296 


"ROCKED    BY   A   HEMPEN    STRING" 

"Muvvy,  sing  'Dway  Wolf."1  And  as  she  paid 
no  heed,  but  looked  at  him,  white-faced  and  strange, 
he  again  repeated,  with  his  most  insinuating  and 
beguiling  tricks  of  eye  and  smile : 

"Muvvy,  sing  'Dway  Wolf  for  Dimmy." 
The  child  put  his  head  in  his  mother's  lap,  and 
Alida  began,  scarce  knowing  what  she  did: 

"'The  gray  wolves  are  coming  fast  over  the  hill, 

Run  fast,  little  lamb,  do  not  baa,  do  not  bleat, 
For  the  gray  wolves  are  hungry,  they  come  here  to  kill, 
And  the  lambs  shall  be  scattered — * 

No,  no,  Jimmy,  muvvy  cannot  sing.  Oh,  can't  you 
feel ,  child  ?  Judith ,  Judith , why  were  you  ever  born  ? ' ' 

It  was  still  in  the  valley.  Had  they  come  to  the 
dead  cotton-woods  yet?  Had  they  begun  it?  The 
children  shrank  from  this  gray-faced  woman  whom 
they  did  not  know  and  but  yet  a  little  while  had 
been  their  mother.  An  awful  silence  had  fallen  on 
the  night.  The  range-cattle  no  longer  bellowed  in 
their  thirst;  the  hot  wind  no  longer  blew  from  the 
desert.  A  hush  not  of  earth  nor  air  nor  the  things 
that  were  of  her  ken  seemed  to  have  fallen  about 
them,  muffling  the  dark  loneliness  as  by  invisible 
flakes.  The  children  had  crouched  close  together  for 
comfort.  They  feared  the  little,  gray-faced  woman 
who  seemed  to  have  stolen  into  their  mother's  place 
and  looked  at  them  with  strange  eyes. 

Jimmy  looked  at  the  woman  who  held  him,  hoping 
his  mother  would  come,  and  he  could  see  them  both. 
And  while  he  waited  he  dropped  off  to  sleep;  and 
little  Judith,  hiding  her  head  on  Topeka's  shoulder, 

297 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

that  she  might  not  see  the  look  in  those  accusing 
eyes,  presently  dreamed  that  all  was  well  with  her 
again;  and  Topeka  reflected  that  if  her  mother 
should  ask  her  in  the  morning  whether  she  had 
dreamed  last  night,  she  would  have  a  fine  tale  to 
tell  of  men  riding  up,  and  loud  voices,  and  trying 
of  the  door,  and  father  going  away  with  them. 
Her  mother  had  questioned  her  this  morning  when 
nothing  had  happened  to  warrant  it.  Surely  she 
would  ask  again  to-morrow,  and  Topeka  could  tell — 
she  could  tell — all. 

Alida  looked  at  her  three  sleeping  children — his 
children,  and  yet  they  could  sleep.  Into  her  mind 
came  that  cry  of  utter  desolation,  "Could  ye  not 
watch  with  me  one  hour?"  And  God  had  been 
deaf  to'  Him,  His  son,  even  as  He  was  deaf  to  her. 

The  children  were  sleeping  easily.  The  hush  that 
had  hung  like  a  pall  over  the  valley  had  not  lifted. 
Had  they  done  it?  Was  it  over  yet?  She  went  to 
the  door  and  listened.  Surely  the  silence  that 
wrapped  the  valley  was  a  thing  apart.  It  was  as  no 
other  silence  that  she  could  remember.  It  was  still, 
still,  and  yet  there  was  vibration  to  it,  like  the 
muffled  roar  within  a  shell.  She  strained  her  ears 
— was  that  the  sound  of  horsemen  going  down  the 
trail?  No,  no,  it  was  only  the  beating  of  her  foolish 
heart  that  would  not  be  still,  but  beat  and  fluttered 
and  would  not  let  her  hear.  Yes,  surely,  that  was 
the  sound  of  hoofs.  It  was  over  then  —  they  were 
going. 

She  would  go  and  look  for  him.  Perhaps  it  would 
not  be  too  late  —  she  had  heard  of  such  things. 

298 


"ROCKED    BY   A   HEMPEN    STRING" 

A  dynamic  force  consumed  her.  She  had  no  con 
sciousness  of  her  body.  Her  feet  and  hands  did 
things  with  incredible  swiftness — lighted  a  lantern, 
selected  a  knife,  ran  to  the  corral  for  an  old  ladder 
that  had  been  there  when  they  took  possession  of 
the  deserted  house;  and  through  all  her  frantic 
haste  she  could  feel  this  new  force,  as  it  were,  lick 
up  the  red  blood  in  her  veins,  burn  her  body  to 
ashes  as  it  gave  her  new  power.  She  felt  that 
never  again  would  she  have  need  of  meat  and 
drink  and  sleep.  This  force  would  abide  with  her 
till  all  was  over,  then  leave  her,  like  the  whitened 
bones  of  the  desert. 

It  was  dark  in  the  valley,  but  the  menacing 
stillness  seemed  to  be  lifting.  The  range -cattle 
had  again  taken  up  their  plaint,  the  sounds  of  the 
desert  night  swept  across  the  stony  walls  of  the 
canon.  Alida  knew  that  it  must  have  happened 
at  the  dead  cotton-woods.  There  were  no  other 
high  trees  about  for  miles.  Again  she  listened  be 
fore  advancing.  There  was  no  sound  of  hoof  or 
champing  bit  or  men  moving  quickly.  They  had 
gone  their  way  into  the  valley.  She  ran  swiftly,  her 
lantern  throwing  its  beam  across  the  scrubby  in 
equalities  of  ground,  but  for  her  there  was  no  need 
of  its  beacon.  To-night  she  was  beyond  the  halting, 
stumbling  uncertainties  of  tread  to  which  man  is 
subject.  There  was  magic  in  her  feet  and  in  her 
hands  and  brain.  Like  the  wind  she  ran,  the  wind 
on  the  great  plain  where  there  are  no  foot-hills  to 
hinder  its  course.  The  black,  dead  trees  stood  out 
distinctly  against  the  starry  sky,  and  from  a  cross- 

299 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

limb  of  one  of  them  dangled  something  with  head 
awry,  like  a  broken  jumping-jack,  something  that 
had  once  been  a  man — and  her  husband.  She  could 
touch  the  feet  of  this  frightful  thing  and  feel  its 
human  warmth.  A  wind  came  up  from  the  desert 
and  blew  across  the  canon's  rocky  walls  into  the 
valley,  and  the  parody  of  a  man  swayed  to  it. 

She  had  been  expecting  this  thing.  For  weeks 
the  image  of  it  had  been  graven  on  her  heart. 
Sleeping  or  waking,  she  had  seen  nothing  but  his 
dangling  body  from  the  cross-limb.  Yet  with  the 
actual  consummation  before  her,  she  felt  its  hideous 
novelty  as  though  it  were  unexpected.  At  sight  of 
it  the  force  that  had  borne  her  up  through  the 
happenings  of  that  day  went  out  of  her,  and  as 
she  stood  with  the  knife  and  the  rope,  that  she 
had  brought  in  the  hope  of  cheating  the  lynchers, 
dangling  from  her  nerveless  hand  her  helplessness 
overcame  her.  Again  and  again  she  called  to  the 
dead  man  for  help,  called  to  him  as  she  had  been 
accustomed  to  call  when  her  woman's  strength  had 
been  unequal  to  some  heavy  household  task. 

Far  down  the  trail  she  could  hear  the  gallop  of  a 
horse  coming  closer,  and  mingled  with  the  sounds  of 
its  flying  feet  was  a  voice  urging  the  horse  to  great 
er  speed  in  the  shrill  cabalistic  "  Hi-hi-hi-ki!"  of  the 
plains-man.  What  was  it — one  of  them  returning 
to  see  that  she  did  not  cheat  the  rope  of  its  due  ? — 
to  hang  her  beside  him,  as  an  after-thought,  as  they 
hanged  Kate  Watson  beside  her  man?  Let  them. 
She  was  standing  near  the  swaying  thing  when  horse 
and  rider  gained  the  ground  beside  her,  and  what 

300 


"ROCKED    BY   A   HEMPEN    STRING" 

was  left  to  her  of  consciousness  made  out  that  the 
rider  was  Judith.  She  pointed  to  it,  and  stood 
helpless  with  the  dangling  rope  in  her  hand. 

"Are  we  too  late?"  Judith  almost  whispered,  as 
she  caught  Alida's  cold,  inert  hands.  "I  dreamed 
it  all  and  came.  If  I  could  have  dreamed  it  sooner!" 

Alida  did  not  seem  to  hear,  neither  could  she 
speak.  She  only  pointed  again  to  the  thing  beside 
her. 

Judith  •  understood.  The  women  had  a  task  to 
share,  and  in  silence  they  began  it.  The  lynchers 
had  done  their  work  all  too  well.  Again  and  again 
the  women  strove  with  all  their  strength  to  take 
down  the  dangling  parody  of  a  man,  which  in  its 
dead-weight  resistance  seemed  in  league  with  the 
forces  against  them.  At  last  the  thing  was  done. 
Down  to  a  pale  world,  that  in  the  haggard  gray  of 
morning  seemed  to  bear  in  its  countenance  some 
thing  of  the  pinch  of  death,  Judith  lowered  the 
thing  that  had  so  lately  been  a  man.  She  cut  the 
rope  away  from  the  neck,  she  straightened  the  wry 
neck  that  seemed  to  wag  in  pantomimic  representa 
tion  of  the  last  word  to  the  lynchers.  They'd  have 
to  reckon  with  him  on  dark  nights,  and  when  the 
wind  wailed  like  a  famished  wolf  and  when  things 
not  to  be  explained  lurked  in  the  shadows  of  the 
desert. 

The  morning  stillness  came  flooding  into  the 
cup-shaped  valley  like  a  soft,  resistless  wave.  Some 
thing  had  come  to  the  gray,  old  earth — another  day, 
with  all  its  human  gift  of  joy  and  woe,  and  the 
earth  welcomed  it  though  it  had  known  so  many. 
20  301 


JUDITH    OP   THE    PLAINS 

The  sun  burst  through  the  gold-tipped  aureole  of 
cloud,  scattering  far  and  wide  lavish  promises  of  a 
perfect  day.  The  earth  seemed  to  respond  with  a 
thrill.  No  longer  was  the  pinch  of  death  in  her 
countenance.  The  valley,  the  mountains,  the  in 
visible  wind,  even  the  dead  cotton-woods,  seemed 
endowed  with  throbbing  life  that  contrasted  fear- 
somely  with  the  terrible  nullity  of  this  thing  that 
once  had  been  Jim  Rodney. 

Alida  had  ceased  to  take  any  part  in  the  hideous 
drama.  She  sat  on  the  ground,  a  crouching  thing 
with  glittering  eyes.  It  was  past  comprehension 
that  the  sun  could  shine  and  the  world  go  on  with 
her  man  dead  before  her.  Judith  had  become  the 
force  that  planned  and  did  to  save  the  family  pride. 
While  her  hands  were  busy  with  preparations  for 
the  dead,  she  rehearsed  what  she  would  say  to  this 
and  that  one  to  account  for  Jim's  absence.  The 
silence  of  the  men  who  had  done  this  thing  would 
be  as  steadfast  as  their  own. 

And  there  were  the  children.  Through  all  her 
frantic  search  for  things  in  the  house,  Judith  re 
membered  that  she  must  step  softly  and  not  waken 
the  children.  With  each  turn  of  the  screw,  as  her 
numbed  consciousness  rallied  and  responded  afresh 
to  the  hideous  realization  of  this  thing,  there  came 
no  release  from  the  tyrannous  hold  of  petty  detail. 
She  remembered  that  she  must  be  back  at  noon  to 
hold  post-office,  and  there  would  be  the  endless 
comedy  to  be  played  once  more  with  her  cavaliers. 
They  must  never  suspect  from  word  or  look  of  hers. 
And  there  was  the  dance  to-night  at  the  Benton 

302 


"ROCKED    BY    A    HEMPEN    STRING" 

ranch — she  hid  her  face  in  her  hands.  Ah,  no,  she 
could  not  do  this  thing!  And  yet  they  must  not 
suspect.  She  must  contrive  to  give  the  impression 
that  Jim  had  cheated  the  rope.  Yes,  she  must 
go  and  dance,  and,  if  need  be,  dance  with  his  very 
murderers.  Jim's  children  were  to  have  the  "clean 
start"  that  he  intended,  and  they  would  have  to 
get  it  here.  There  was  no  money  for  an  exodus  and 
a  beginning  elsewhere. 

Alida  still  crouched  beside  the  long,  even  tar 
paulin  roll  that  Judith  had  prepared  with  hands 
that  knew  not  what  they  did.  But  now  Judith 
gently  roused  her  and  put  in  her  hand  a  spade; 
already  she  herself  had  begun.  But  Alida  stared 
at  it  dully,  as  if  she  did  not  understand.  Then 
Judith  pointed  to  something  black  that  had  begun 
to  wheel  in  the  sky,  wheel,  and  with  each  circular 
swoop  come  closer  to  the  roll  of  tarpaulin.  Then 
Alida  knew,  and,  taking  the  spade,  she  and  Judith 
began  to  dig  the  grave. 


XX 

THE  BALL 

THE  dance  in  the  Benton  ranch  was  the  great 
social  event  of  the  midsummer  season.  The 
Bentons  had  begun  to  give  dances  in  the  days  of 
plenty,  when  the  cattle  industry  had  been  at  its 
dizziest  height;  and  they  had  continued  to  give 
dances  through  all  the  depressing  fluctuations  of 
the  trade,  perhaps  in  much  the  same  spirit  as  one 
whistles  in  the  dark  to  keep  up  his  courage.  Thus, 
though  cattle  fell  and  continued  to  fall  in  the 
scale  of  prices  till  the  end  no  man  dared  surmise, 
the  Benton  "boys" — they  were  two  brothers,  aged 
respectively  forty-five  and  fifty  years — continued 
to  hold  out  facilities  to  dance  and  be  merry. 

All  day  strange  wagons  —  ludicrous,  makeshift 
things — had  been  discharging  loads  of  women  and 
children  at  the  Benton  ranch,  tired  mothers  and 
their  insistent  offspring.  To  the  women  this  stren 
uous  relaxation  came  as  manna  in  the  wilderness. 
What  was  the  dreary  round  of  washing,  ironing, 
baking,  and  the  chain  of  household  tasks  that 
must  be  done  as  primitively  as  in  Genesis,  if  only 
they  might  dance  and  forget?  So  the  mothers  came 
early  and  stayed  late,  and  the  primary  sessions  of 

304 


THE    BALL 

the  dances  fulfilled  all  the  functions  of  the  latter- 
day  mothers'  congresses — there  were  infant  ailments 
to  be  discussed,  there  were  the  questions  of  food 
and  of  teething,  of  paregoric  and  of  flannel  bands, 
which,  strange  heresy,  seemed  to  be  "going  out," 
according  to  the  latest  advices  from  those  com- 
pendiums  of  all  domestic  information,  the  "Wom 
an's  Pages"  of  the  daily  papers. 

Inasmuch  as  these  more  than  punctual  debaters 
must  be  cooked  for,  there  was,  to  speak  plainly, 
"feeling"  on  the  part  of  the  housekeeper  at  the 
Bentons'.  Wasn't  it  enough  for  folks  to  come  to  a 
dance  and  get  a  good  supper,  and  go  away  like 
Christians  when  the  thing  was  over,  instead  of 
coming  a  day  before  it  began  and  lingering  on  as 
if  they  had  no  home  to  go  to?  This,  at  least,  was 
the  housekeeper's  point  of  view,  a  crochety  one, 
be  it  said,  not  shared  by  the  brothers  Benton, 
whose  hospitality  was  as  genuine  as  it  was  primitive. 
To  this  same  difficult  lady  the  infants,  who  were 
too  tender  in  years  to  be  separated  from  their 
mothers,  were  as  productive  of  anxiety  as  their 
elders.  A  room  had  been  set  apart  for  their  especial 
accommodation,  the  floor  of  which,  carefully  spread 
with  bed  -  quilts  and  pillows,  prevented  any  great 
damage  from  happening  to  the  more  tender  of  the 
guests;  and  they  rolled  and  crooned  and  dug  their 
small  fists  into  each  other's  faces  while  their  mothers 
danced  in  the  room  beyond. 

By  nightfall  the  Benton  ranch  gleamed  on  the 
dark  prairie  like  a  constellation.  Lights  burned  at 
every  window;  a  broad  beam  issued  from  the  door 

305 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

and  threw  a  welcoming  beacon  across  the  darkness 
and  silence  of  the  night.  The  scraping  of  fiddles 
mingled  with  the  rhythmic  scuffle  of  feet  and  the 
singsong  of  the  words  that  the  dancers  sung  as  they 
whirled  through  the  figures  of  the  quadrille  and 
lancers.  About  the  walls  of  the  room  where  the 
dancing  was  in  progress  stood  a  fringe  of  gallants, 
their  heads  newly  oiled,  and  proclaiming  the  fact 
in  a  bewildering  variety  of  strong  perfumes.  Red 
silk  neckerchiefs  knotted  with  elaborate  carelessness 
displayed  to  advantage  bronzed  throats;  new  over 
alls,  and  of  the  shaggiest  species,  amply  testified  to 
the  social  importance  of  the  Benton  dance. 

As  yet  the  dancing  was  but  intermittent  and  was 
engaged  in  chiefly  by  the  mothers  with  large  progeny, 
who  felt  that  after  the  arrival  of  a  greater  number 
of  guests,  and  among  them  the  unmarried  girls,  their 
opportunities  might  not  be  as  plentiful  as  at  present. 
One  or  two  cow-punchers,  in  an  excess  of  civility 
at  the  presence  of  the  fair,  had  insisted  on  giving 
up  their  six-shooters,  mumbling  something  about 
"there  being  ladies  present  and  a  man  being  hasty 
at  times."  In  the  "bunk-room,"  which  did  duty 
as  a  gentleman's  cloak-room,  things  were  really 
warming  up.  There  was  much  drinking  of  healths, 
as  the  brothers  Benton  had  thoughtfully  provided 
the  wherewithal,  and  that  in  excellent  quality. 

Costigan  was  there,  and  Texas  Tyler,  who  had 
ridden  sixty  miles  to  "swing  a  petticoat,  or,  if  there 
were  not  enough  to  go  round,  to  dance  with  a 
handkerchief  tied  to  some  fellow's  sleeve.  By 
"  swinging  a  petticoat  "  it  was  perfectly  understood 

306 


THE    BALL 

among  all  his  friends  that  he  meant  a  chance  to 
dance  with  Judith  Rodney.  Year  in  and  year  out 
Texas  never  failed  to  present  himself  at  the  post- 
office  on  mail-days,  if  his  work  took  him  within  a 
radius  of  fifty  miles  of  the  Daxes.  No  dance  where 
the  possibility  of  seeing  Judith  was  even  remote  was 
too  long  a  ride  for  him  to  undertake,  even  when  it 
took  him  across  the  dreariest  wastes  of  the  desert. 
Texas  had  been  devoted  to  Judith  since  she  had 
left  the  convent,  and  sometimes,  perhaps  twice  a 
year,  she  told  him  that  she  valued  his  friendship. 
On  all  other  occasions  she  rejected  his  suit  as  if  his 
continual  pressing  of  it  were  something  in  the  nat 
ure  of  an  affront.  Yet  Texas  persevered. 

"Well,  here's  lukin'  at  you,  since  in  the  way  of  a 
frind  there's  nothing  better  to  look  at!"  and  Gostigan 
drained  a  tin  cup  at  Texas  Tyler. 

"Your  very  good  health,"  said  Texas,  who  was 
somewhat  embarrassed  by  what  was  regarded  as 
Costigan's  ' '  floweriness. ' ' 

"  Begorra,  is  that  Hinderson  or  the  ghost  av  the 
b'y?"  Costigan's  roving  eye  was  arrested  by  the 
foreman  of  the  "XXX,"  who  stood  drinking  with 
two  or  three  men  of  his  outfit.  He  was  pale  and 
ill-looking.  He  drank  several  times  in  succession, 
as  if  he  needed  the  stimulant,  and  without  the 
formality  of  drinking  to  any  one.  The  two  or  three 
"XXX"  men  who  were  with  him  seemed  to  be 
equally  in  need  of  restoratives. 

They  talked  of  the  cattle  stampede  in  which 
several  of  the  outfits  had  been  heavy  losers.  Some 
nine  hundred  head  of  cattle  had  been  recovered,  and 

3°7 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

members  of  the  different  outfits  were  still  scouring 
the  Red  Desert  for  strays. 

Something  in  the  nature  of  a  sensation  was  cre 
ated  by  the  arrival  of  the  Wetmore  party.  The 
women  were  frankly  interested  in  the  clothes,  bear 
ing,  and  general  deportment  of  the  New  -  Yorkers. 
Rumors  of  Miss  Colebrooke's  beauty  were  rife,  and 
there  was  a  general  inclination  to  compare  her  with 
local  belles.  Such  exotic  types  —  they  had  seen 
these  city  beauties  before — were  as  a  rule  too  color 
less  for  their  appreciation.  They  liked  faces  that 
had  "  more  go  to  them,"  was  the  verdict  passed  upon 
one  famous  beauty  who  had  visited  theWetmores 
the  year  before.  In  arrangement  of  the  hair,  per 
haps,  in  matters  of  dress,  the  judges  were  willing 
to  concede  the  laurels  to  city  damsels,  but  there 
concession  stopped.  But  evidently  Kitty,  to  judge 
from  the  elaboration  of  her  toilet,  did  not  intend 
to  be  dismissed  thus  cursorily.  She  herself  was 
delicately,  palely  pretty,  as  always,  but  her  hair 
was  tortured  to  a  fashionable  fluffiness,  and  the 
simplicity  of  her  green  muslin  gown  was  only  in 
the  name.  It  was  muslin  disguised,  elaborated, 
beribboned,  lace-trimmed  till  its  identity  was  all 
but  lost  in  the  multitude  of  pretty  complications. 

"Did  you  know  that  old -Ma'am  Yellett  had  a 
school-marm  up  to  her  place?"  asked  one  of  the 
men,  apropos  of  Eastern  prettiness. 

"Well,  well,"  Costigan  reminisced,  "'tis  some  av 
thim  Yillitt  lambs  thot's  six  fut  in  their  shtockings, 
if  Oi  be  rimimbering  right.  Sure,  the  tacher  ought 
to  be  something  av  a  pugilist,  Oi'm  thinkinV 

308 


THE    BALL 

"I  seen  her  the  other  day,  and  a  neater  little 
heifer  never  turned  out  to  pasture.  Lord,  I'd  like 
to  be  gnawing  the  corners  of  the  primer  right  now, 
if  she  was  there  to  whale  the  ruler." 

"Arrah,"  bayed  Costigan,  "but  the  women  ques 
tion  is  gittin'  complicated  ontoirely,  wid  Miss 
Rodney — an'  herself  lukin'  loike  a  saint  in  a  church 
window — dalin'  the  mails  an'  th'  other  wan  tachin' 
in  the  mountains.  Sure,  this  place  is  gittin'  to  be 
but  a  sorry  shpot  for  bachelors  loike  mesilf." 

"I  ain't  mentionin'  no  names,  but  there's  a  man 
here  ain't  treatin'  a  mighty  fine  woman  square  and 
accordin'  to  the  way  she  ought  to  be  treated.'* 

The  information  ran  through  the  circle  like  an 
electric  shock.  Men  stopped  in  the  act  of  pledging 
each  other's  healths  to  listen.  Loungers  straight 
ened  up ;  every  topic  was  dropped.  The  man  who 
had  made  the  statement  was  the  loose-lipped  busy 
body  who  had  suggested  to  his  host  that  he  give  up 
his  six-shooter  since  there  were  "ladies  present." 

" What  the  hell  are  you  waiting  for?"  queried 
Texas  Tyler,  savagely.  "  You've  cracked  your  whip, 
made  your  bow,  and  got  our  attention;  why  the  hell 
don't  you  go  on?" 

The  man  looked  about  nervously.  He  was  rather 
alarmed  at  the  interest  he  had  excited.  The  next 
moment  Peter  Hamilton  had  walked  into  the  room. 
There  was  something  crucial  -in  his  entrance  at  this 
particular  time ;  it  crystallized  suspicion.  The  gossip 
took  advantage  of  the  greetings  to  Hamilton  to  make 
his  escape.  Texas  Tyler  left  the  bunk-room  im 
mediately  and  looked  for  him  in  the  room  with  the 

3°9 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

dancers.  The  fiddles,  in  the  hands  of  a  couple  of 
Mexicans,  had  set  the  whole  room  whirling  as  if 
by  magic.  As  they  danced  they  sang,  joining  with 
the  "caller-out,"  who  held  his  vociferous  post  be 
tween  the  rooms,  till  the  room  was  full  of  singing, 
dancing  men  and  women,  who  spun  and  pirouetted 
as  if  they  had  not  a  care  in  the  world.  But  Texas 
Tyler  was  not  of  these,  as  he  looked  through  the 
dancers  for  his  man.  There  was  a  red  flash  in  the 
pupils  of  his  eyes,  and  he  told  himself  that  he  was 
going  to  do  things  the  way  they  did  them  in  Texas, 
for,  of  course,  he  knew  that  the  loose -lipped  idiot 
had  meant  Judith  Rodney  and  Peter  Hamilton. 
Never  before  had  such  an  idea  occurred  to  him, 
and  now  that  it  had  been  presented  to  his  mind's 
eye,  he  wondered  why  he  had  been  such  a  blind  fool. 
Never  had  the  singing  to  these  dances  seemed  so 
absurd. 

"Hawk  hop  out  and  the  crow  hop  in, 
Three  hands  round  and  go  it  ag'in, 
Allemane  left,  back  to  the  missus, 
Grande  right  and  left  and  sneak  a  few  kisses." 

He  rushed  from  the  room  and  down  to  the  stable. 
At  sight  of  him  some  one  leaped  on  a  horse  and  rode 
out  into  the  darkness. 

"Who  was  that?"  asked  Texas  of  a  man  lounging 
by  the  corral. 

"That  was — "  and  he  gave  the  name  of  the  loose- 
lipped  man. 

Texas  cursed  long  and  picturesquely.  Then  he 
went  back  to  the  bunk-room  and  tried  to  pick  a 

310 


THK    BALL 

quarrel  with  Peter  Hamilton,  who  good-naturedly 
assumed  that  his  old  friend  had  been  drinking  and 
refused  to  take  offence. 

Peter  went  in  to  ask  Kitty  to  dance  with  him. 
All  that  evening  he  had  been  waiting  anxiously  for 
Judith.  Meanwhile  he  had  used  all  his  influence  as 
a  newly  appointed  member  of  the  Wetmore  outfit 
to  soothe  the  ruffled  feelings  of  the  cattle -men. 
Of  the  tragedy  in  the  valley  he  had  heard  no 
rumor. 

Kitty  had  come  to  the  point  where  she  was  will 
ing  to  waive  the  R^camier  -  Chateaubriand  friend 
ship  in  favor  of  one  more  personal  and  ordinary. 
In  fact,  as  Peter  showed  a  disposition  to  regard  as 
final  her  answer  to  him  on  the  day  he  had  spurred 
across  the  desert,  Kitty,  with  true  feminine  per 
versity,  inclined  to  permit  him  to  resume  his  suit. 
His  acquiescence  in  her  refusal  she  had  at  first 
regarded  as  the  turning  of  the  worm ;  after  the  wolf- 
hunt,  however,  her  meditations  were  more  disturb 
ing.  She  had  never  told  Peter  of  that  strange 
woodland  meeting  with  Judith,  yet  Judith's  beauty, 
her  probable  hold  over  Peter,  the  degree  of  his 
affection  for  her  were  rankling  questions  in  Kitty's 
consciousness.  In  the  stress  of  these  considerations 
Kitty  lost  her  head  completely  for  so  old  a  cam 
paigner.  She  drew  the  apron-string  tight — attempt 
ed  force  instead  of  strategy. 

Kitty  and  Peter  finished  their  waltz,  one  of  the 
few  round  dances  of  the  evening. 

"How  perfectly  you  dance,  Kitty!  It's  a  long 
time  since  we've  had  a  waltz  together." 


JUDITH    OF   THE    PLAINS 

The  cow-punchers  looked  at  Kitty  as  if  she  were 
not  quite  flesh  and  blood.  Such  flaxen  daintiness, 
feniininty  etherealized  to  angelic  perfection,  was  new 
to  them,  but  their  admiration  was  like  that  given  to 
a  delicate  exotic  which,  wonderful  as  it  is,  one  is 
well  pleased  to  view  through  the  glass  of  the  florist's 
window. 

Peter  was  deferentially  attentive  and  zealous  to 
make  the  Wetmore  party  have  a  thoroughly  good 
time,  yet  he  did  all  these  things,  as  it  were,  with 
his  eye  on  the  door.  He  was  not  obviously  distrait ; 
he  was  the  man  of  the  world,  talking,  making  him 
self  agreeable,  "  doing  his  duty,"  while  his  sub- 
consciousness  was  busy  with  other  matters.  It  was 
rather  through  telepathy  than  through  any  lack 
of  attention  paid  to  her  that  Kitty  realized  the 
state  of  things,  and  in  proportion  to  her  realization 
came  a  feeling  of  helplessness;  it  was  so  new,  so 
unexpected,  so  cruel.  He  seemed  drifting  away 
from  her  on  some  tide  of  affairs  of  the  very  existence 
of  which  she  had  been  unconscious.  Further  and 
further  he  had  drifted,  till  intelligible  speech  no 
longer  seemed  possible  between  them.  They  said 
the  foolish,  empty  things  that  people  call  out  as  the 
boat  glides  away  from  the  shore,  the  things  that 
all  the  world  may  hear,  and  in  his  eyes  there  was 
only  that  smiling  kindness.  How  had  it  come  about 
after  all  these  years?  What  was  it  that  had  first 
cut  the  cable  that  sent  him  drifting?  What  was  it? 
She  must  think.  Oh,  who  could  think  with  that 
noise!  How  silly  was  their  singing  as  they  danced, 
how  uncouth! 

312 


THE    BALL 

"All  dance  as  pretty  as  you  can, 
Turn  your  toes  and  left  alleman; 

First  gent  sashay  to  the  right, 
Now  swing  the  girl  you  last  swung  about, 
And  now  the  one  that's  cut  her  out, 

And  now  the  one  that's  dressed  in  white, 
And  now  the  belle  of  the  ball." 

The  dancers  seemed  bitten  to  the  quick  with  the 
tarantula  of  an  ecstatic  hilarity ;  their  bodies  sway 
ed  in  perfect  harmony  to  the  swing  of  the  fiddles 
and  the  swell  of  the  chorus.  The  most  uncouth 
of  them  came  under  the  spell  of  that  mad  magic. 
Their  movements,  that  in  the  beginning  of  the 
dance  had  been  shy  and  awkward,  became  almost 
beautiful;  they  forgot  arms,  hands,  feet;  their  bodies 
had  become  like  the  strings  of  some  skilfully  play 
ed  instrument,  obediently  responsive  to  rhythm, 
and  in  that  composite  blending  of  races  each  in  his 
dancing  brought  some  of  the  poetry  of  his  own  far 
land.  The  scene  was  amazing  in  its  beauty  and 
simplicity,  like  the  strong,  inspirational  power  and 
rugged  rhythm  of  some  old  border  minstrel.  One 
by  one  the  dancers  glowed  with  better  under 
standing;  discordant  elements,  alien  nations  were 
fused  to  harmony  in  this  vivid  picture. 

Peter  turned  to  Kitty,  expecting  to  see  her  face 
aglow  with  the  warmth  of  it.  She  stood  beside 
him,  the  one  unresponsive  soul  in  the  room,  on  her 
lips  a  pale,  tolerant  smile. 

''Aren't  they  splendid,  Kitty,  these  women? 
More  than  half  of  them  work  like  beavers  all  day, 
and  they  have  young  children  and  dozens  of  worries, 

3X3 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

but  would  you  suspect  it?     They're  just  the  women 
for  this  country." 

Now  in  the  present  state  of  affairs  almost  any 
other  subject  would  have  been  better  calculated 
to  promote  good  feeling  than  the  one  on  which 
Peter  had  alighted.  Kitty's  thoughts  had  perversely 
lingered  about  one  who,  though  not  one  with  these 
women,  had  yet  their  sturdy  self-reliance,  their 
acquiescence  in  grim  conditions,  their  pleasure  in 
simple  things.  Kitty's  apprehension,  slow  to  kindle, 
had  taken  fire  like  a  forest,  and  by  its  blaze  she  saw 
things  in  a  distorted  light;  her  present  vision 
magnified  the  relations  of  Peter  and  Judith  to  a 
degree  that  a  month  ago  she  would  have  regarded 
as  impossible.  "He  is  her  lover!"  was  the  accusa 
tion  that  suddenly  flashed  through  her  mind,  and 
with  the  thought  an  overwhelming  desire  to  say 
something  unkind,  something  that  should  hurt  him, 
supplanted  all  judgment  and  reason. 

"Oh,  it's  a  decidedly  remarkable  scene,  pictorially, 
I  agree  with  you.  And  an  artist,  of  course — but 
isn't  it  a  trifle  quixotic,  Peter,  to  idealize  them  be 
cause  they  are  having  a  good  time?  There's  no 
virtue  in  it.  It  is  conceivable  that  they  might 
have  to  work  just  as  hard  and  have  just  as  many 
little  children  to  look  after,  and  yet  not  have  these 
dances  you  praise  them  for  coming  to." 

"I'm  afraid  you  find  us  and  our  amusements  a 
little  crude.  Evidently  the  spirit  of  our  dances 
does  not  appeal  to  you;  but  I  did  not  suppose  it 
necessary  to  remind  you  that  they  should  not 
be  judged  by  the  standard  of  conventional  even- 

3*4 


THE    BALL 

ing   parties,"   said  Peter,   hurt   and    angry  in  his 
turn. 

"Us,  our  amusements,  our  dances?  So  you  are 
quite  identified  with  these  people,  my  dear  Peter, 
and  I  had  thought  you  an  ornament  of  cotillions  and 
country  clubs.  I  can  only  infer  that  it  is  some 
body  in  particular  who  has  brought  about  your 
change  of  heart." 

Peter  flushed  a  little,  and  Kitty  kept  on:  "Some 
of  the  native  belles  are  quite  wonderful,  I  believe. 
Nannie  Wetmore  tells  of  a  half-breed  who  is  very 
handsome." 

Peter  set  his  lips.  "At  the  expense  of  spoiling 
Nannie's  pretty  romance,  I  must  tell  you  that  the 
lady  she  refers  to  is  not  only  the  most  beautiful  of 
women,  but  she  would  be  at  ease  in  any  drawing- 
room.  It  would  be  as  ridiculous  to  apply  the  petty 
standards  of  ladyhood  to  her  as  it  would  to — well, 
imagine  some  foolish  girl  bringing  up  the  question  at 
a  woman's  club — '  Was  Joan  of  Arc  a  lady?'  "  Peter 
spoke  without  calculating  the  conviction  that  his 
words  carried.  He  was  angry,  and  his  manner, 
voice,  intonation  showed  it. 

Kitty,  now  that  her  most  unworthy  suspicions 
had  been  confirmed  by  Peter's  ardent  championing 
of  Judith,  lost  her  discretion  in  the  pang  that 
gnawed  her  little  soul:  "I  beg  your  pardon,  Peter. 
When  I  spoke  I  did  not,  of  course,  know  that  this 
young  woman  was  anything  to  you." 

"Anything  to  me?  My  dear  Kitty,  I've  never 
had  a  better  friend  than  Judith  Rodney." 

The  dance  was  at  its  flood-tide.     The  exhilaration 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

had  grown  with  each  sweep  of  the  fiddle-bow,  with 
the  sorcery  of  sinuous,  swaying  bodies,  with  the  song 
of  the  dancers  as  they  joined  in  the  calling  out  of  the 
figures,  with  the  rhythmic  shuffle  of  feet,  with  the 
hum  of  the  pulses,  with  the  leaping  of  blood  to 
cheek  and  heart  till  the  dancers  whirled  as  leaves 
circling  towards  the  eddies  of  a  whirlpool.  The 
dancing  Mrs.  Dax  split  her  favors  into  infinitesimal 
fragments,  for  each  measure  of  which  her  long  list  of 
waiting  gallants  stood  ready  to  pick  a  quarrel  if 
need  be.  Her  dancing,  in  the  splendor  of  its 
spontaneity,  had  something  of  the  surge  of  the  west 
wind  sweeping  over  a  field  of  grain.  Sometimes 
she  waved  back  her  partner  and  alone  danced  a 
figure,  putting  to  the  music  her  own  interpretation — 
barbaric,  passionate,  rude,  but  magnificently  vivid. 
And  the  dancers  would  stop  and  crowd  about  her, 
clapping  hands  and  stamping  feet  to  the  rhyming 
movement  of  her  body,  while  against  the  wall  her 
hostile  sister-in-law,  Mrs.  Leander,  stood  and  glared 
in  a  fury  of  disapproval,  Leander  himself  smiling 
broadly  meanwhile  and  exercising  the  utmost  re.- 
straint  to  keep  from  joining  Mrs.  Johnnie's  train. 

The  "XXX"  men,  who  had  remained  aloof  from 
the  dancers  and  the  merriment,  keeping  a  faithful 
vigil  in  the  bunk-room,  where  the  hospitable  bottles 
were  to  be  found,  seemed  to  awaken  from  the  spell 
that  had  bound  them  all  day.  Henderson,  the 
foreman,  whose  face  had  not  lost  its  tallow  paleness 
despite  the  number  of  his  potations,  put  his  head 
through  the  door  to  have  a  look  at  the  dancing  Mrs. 
Dax,  was  caught  in  the  outermost  eddy  of  the 


THE    BALL 

whirling  throng,  and  was  soon  dancing  as  madly  as 
the  others.  The  rest  of  the  "XXX"  party  still 
hugged  the  bunk-room,  where  the  bottles  gleamed 
hospitable.  They  were  still  dusty  from  their  long 
ride  of  the  early  morning,  and  more  than  once  their 
fear-quickened  imaginations  had  been  haunted  by 
the  spectre  of  the  dead  cotton- woods,  from  which 
something  heavy  and  limp  and  warm  had  been 
swaying  when  they  left  it.  Henderson  had  secured 
the  dancing  Mrs.  Dax  for  a  partner.  The  "caller- 
out,"  stationed  between  the  two  rooms,  warmed  to 
his  genial  task.  He  improvised,  he  put  a  wealth 
of  imagination  and  personality  into  his  work,  he 
showered  compliments  on  the  nimbleness  of  Mrs. 
Dax's  feet,  he  joked  Henderson  on  his  pallor,  he 
attempted  a  florid  venture  at  Kitty.  Miguel  put 
fresh  magic  into  his  bowing,  Jose's  fiddle  rioted  with 
the  madness  of  it. 

Judith  stood  for  a  moment  in  the  kindly  envelop 
ing  darkness,  and  her  heart  cried  out  in  protest  at 
the  thing  she  must  do.  It  was  the  utmost  cruelty 
of  fate  that  forced  her  here  to  dance  on  the  evening 
of  the  day  that  they  had  killed  him.  But  she  must 
do  it,  that  his  children  might  evade  the  stigma  of 
"cattle-thief,"  that  the  shadow  of  the  gallows-tree 
might  not  fall  across  their  young  lives,  that  the 
neighbors  might  give  credence  to  the  tale  of  Jim's 
escape  from  his  enemies,  that  Alida  and  she  might 
earn  the  pittance  that  would  give  the  children  the 
"clean  start"  that  Jim  had  set  his  heart  on  so 
confidently.  And  she  must  dance  and  be  the 
merriest  of  them  all  that  these  things  might  happen, 
21 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

but  again  and  again  she  deferred  the  dread  moment. 
The  light,  the  music,  the  voices,  the  shuffle  of  the 
feet  came  to  her  as  she  stood  forlorn  in  the  grateful 
darkness.  On  the  wall  the  shadows  of  the  dancers, 
magnified  and  grotesque,  parodied  their  movements, 
as  they  contended  there,  monstrous,  uncouth  shapes, 
like  prehistoric  monsters  gripping,  clinching  in  some 
mighty  struggle;  and  above  it  all  sang  out  the  wild 
rhythm  of  Miguel's  fiddle,  and  young  Jose's  bow 
capered  madly. 

Judith  drew  close  to  the  window,  and  the  merri 
ment  struck  chill  at  her  heart  like  the  tolling  of  a 
knell.  She  saw  the  pale  face  of  Henderson  gleam 
yellow- white  among  the  dancers,  and,  watching  him, 
the  blood  -  lust  of  the  Indian  woke  in  her  heart. 
The  rest  of  the  room  was  but  a  blur;  the  dancers 
faded  into  swaying  shadows;  she  saw  nothing  but 
Henderson  as  he  danced  that  he  might  forget  the 
gray  of  morning,  the  black,  dead  trees,  and  the 
grotesque  thing  with  head  awry  that  swayed  in  the 
breeze  like  a  pendulum.  He  dreaded  the  long,  black 
ride  that  would  bring  him  to  his  camp,  for  he  alone 
of  the  lynchers  remained.  Something  was  drawing 
his  gaze  out  into  the  blackness  of  the  night.  He 
struggled  against  the  temptation  to  look  towards 
the  window.  He  whirled  the  Dax  woman  till  her 
twinkling  feet  cleared  the  floor.  He  sang  to  the 
accompaniment  of  Miguel's  fiddle.  He  was  out 
witting  the  thing  that  dangled  before  his  eyes, 
having  the  incontrovertible  last  word  with  a  ven 
geance.  And  as  he  danced  and  swayed,  all  un 
wittingly  his  glance  fell  on  the  window  opposite, 


THE    BALL 

and  Jim  Rodney's  face  looked  in  at  him,  beautiful 
in  its  ecstasy  of  hate  —  Rodney's  face,  refined, 
sharpened,  tried  in  some  bitter  crucible,  but 
Rodney's  face!  Henderson  could  not  withdraw  his 
fascinated  gaze.  He  stood  in  the  midst  of  the 
dancers  like  a  man  turned  to  stone.  He  put  up  his 
hand  to  his  eyes  as  if  to  brush  away  a  cloud  of 
swarming  gnats,  then  threw  up  his  arms  and  rushed 
from  the  room.  The  dancers  paused  in  their  mad 
whirl.  Miguel's  bow  stopped  with  a  wailing  shriek. 
Every  eye  turned  towards  the  window  for  an  ex 
planation  of  Henderson's  sudden  panic,  but  all 
was  dark  without  on  the  prairie.  The  magic  had 
gone  from  the  dance,  the  whirlwind  of  drapery  that 
had  swung  like  flags  in  a  breeze  dropped  in  dead 
air.  "  What  was  it?"  the  dancers  asked  one  another 
in  whispers. 

And  for  answer  Judith  entered,  but  a  Judith 
that  was  strange  to  them.  There  was  about  her  a 
white  radiance  that  kept  the  dancers  back,  and  in 
her  eyes  something  of  Mary's  look,  as  she  turned 
from  Calvary.  The  dancers  still  kept  the  position 
of  the  figures,  the  men  with  their  arms  about  their 
partners'  waists,  the  women  stepping  forward;  they 
were  like  the  painted  figures  of  dancers  in  a  fresco. 
And  among  them  stood  Judith,  waiting  to  play  her 
part,  waiting  to  show  her  world  that  she  could 
dance  and  be  merry  because  all  was  well  with  her 
and  hers.  But  the  bronzed  sons  of  the  saddle  hung 
back,  they  who  a  day  before  would  have  quarrelled 
for  the  honor  of  a  dance.  They  were  afraid  of  her; 
it  would  be  like  dancing  with  the  death  angel. 

3*9 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

She  looked  from  face  to  face.  Surely  some  one 
would  ask  her  to  dance,  and  her  eyes  fell  on  Hen 
derson,  returning  from  the  bottled  courage  in  the 
bunk-room.  Some  word  was  due  from  him  to 
explain  his  terror  of  a  moment  ago. 

"Oh,  Miss  Judith,  I  thought  you  was  a  ghost 
when  I  seen  you  at  the  window." 

"A  ghost  that's  ready  to  dance."  She  held  out 
her  hand  to  him.  In  her  gesture  there  was  some 
thing  of  royal  command,  and  Henderson,  reading 
the  meaning  in  her  eyes,  stepped  forward.  Her 
face,  almost  a  perfect  replica  of  the  dead  man's, 
looked  at  him. 

"  I  bring  you  greeting  from  my  brother,"  she  said. 
"He  has  gone  on  a  long  journey." 

Henderson  started.  Through  the  still  room  ran 
the  murmur,  "Rodney's  outwitted  them;  he's 
played  a  joke  on  the  rope!"  And  Judith,  his  dare 
devil  sister,  had  come  with  his  greetings  to  Hen 
derson,  leader  of  the  faction  against  him!  The 
tide  had  turned.  The  applause  that  is  ever  the 
meed  of  the  winner  was  hers  to  command.  The 
cattle  faction  were  ready  to  sing  the  praises  of  her 
splendid  audacity.  In  their  hearts  they  were  glad 
in  the  thought  that  Jim  had  outwitted  them. 

Miguel's  bow  dashed  across  the  strings,  and  he 
drew  from  the  little  brown  fiddle  music  that  again 
made  them  merry  and  glowing.  The  magic  came 
back  to  the  dance,  the  blood  leaped  again  with 
the  merry  madness,  and  they  swept  to  the  bowing 
like  leaves  when  the  first  faint  wail  of  winter  cries 
in  the  trees. 

320 


THE    BALL 

Hamilton,  standing  apart  with  Kitty  Colebrooke, 
had  been  a  dazed  witness  of  the  scene.  With  the 
rest  he  had  watched  the  entrance  of  Judith,  had 
been  stunned  by  the  change  in  her  appearance,  had 
seen  her  triumph  and  heard  the  rumor  of  Jim's 
escape,  and  his  heart  had  warmed  with  the  good 
word.  She  had  probably  managed  the  plan,  and 
had  come  to-night,  in  the  joy  of  her  triumph,  to  hurl 
in  their  faces  that  she  had  outwitted  them.  And 
she  had  paid  the  penalty  of  her  courage — her  face 
told  that.  What  a  woman  she  was!  Her  heart 
would  pay  the  penalty  to  the  last  throb,  and  yet  she 
could  dance  with  the  merriest  of  them.  And  as  she 
danced  she  seemed  to  Peter  Hamilton,  in  her  white 
draperies,  like  a  cloud  of  whirling  snow-flakes  drift 
ing  across  the  silence  of  the  desert  night.  She  was 
the  one  woman  in  all  the  world  for  him,  though  his 
blind  eyes  had  faced  the  light  for  years  and  had  not 
known  it.  He  had  squandered  the  strength  of  his 
youth  in  the  pursuit  of  a  little  wax  light,  and  had 
not  marked  the  serene  shining  of  the  moon. 

"  And  a  man  there  was  and  he  made  his  prayer — " 
he  quoted  to  himself.  Well,  thank  God  that  it  had 
not  been  answered.  He  would  take  her  away  from 
here.  She  could  take  her  place  in  his  family  and 
reflect  credit  on  his  choice.  His  family,  his  friends 
— he  winced  at  the  thought  of  their  possible  re 
ception  of  the  news.  But  Judith's  presence  would 
adjust  these  difficulties.  He  would  present  her  to 
Kitty  now,  that  his  old  friend  might  see  what 
manner  of  woman  she  was.  Kitty,  he  felt,  would 
be  kind  in  memory  of  the  old  days.  She  would 

321 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

give  to  them  both  in  friendship  what  she  had 
denied  him  in  love.  And  as  he  warmed  to  the 
thought  he  turned  to  the  woman  of  his  youth. 
And  she  read  a  look  in  his  face  that  had  not  been 
there  in  a  long  time.  Had  he,  then,  come  back  to 
her?  Was  the  distance  from  bark  to  shore  lessening 
as  the  sea  of  misunderstanding  diminished  ? 

"Kitty,  we  were  speaking  a  moment  ago  of  Miss 
Rodney.  You  would  like  to  know  her,  I'm  sure. 
We've  been  such  good  friends  all  these  years  while 
you  were  deciding  that  what  I  wanted  was  not 
good  for  us — and  deciding  wisely,  as  I  know  now. 
Look  at  her!  You'll  understand  how  she  has  helped 
me  keep  the  balance  of  things.  When  she's  finished 
dancing  you'll  let  me  bring  her  to  you,  won't  you?" 

And  Kitty,  who  had  expected  much  different  words, 
struggled  with  the  meaning  of  these  unexpected 
ones.  The  strangeness  of  the  pain  bewildered  her. 
Her  dazed  consciousness  refused  to  accept  that  Peter 
was  asking  permission  to  present  to  her  a  woman 
whom  she  thought  should  not  have  been  permitted 
to  enter  her  presence.  There  was  about  her  a  white 
flame  of  anger  that  seemed  to  lick  up  the  red  blood 
in  her  veins  as  she  turned  to  answer: 

"She  is  undeniably  handsome,  Peter,  but  I  do 
not  care  to  meet  your  mistress." 

He  bowed  low  to  her  as  Lieutenant  Swift,  of  Fort 
Washakie,  who  was  of  the  Wetmore  party,  came  to 
claim  Kitty's  hand  for  the  next  dance.  Judith  and 
Henderson  were  leading  the  last  figure,  their  hands 
clasped  high  in  an  arch  through  which  the  dancers 
trooped  in  couples.  Again  and  again  he  tried  to 

322 


THE    BALL 

catch  Judith's  eye,  but  her  glance  never  once  met 
his.  Her  great,  wide  eyes  had  a  far-away  look  as 
if  they  saw  some  tragedy,  the  shadow  of  which 
would  never  fall  from  her.  She  was,  indeed,  the 
tragic  muse  in  her  floating  white  drapery,  the 
tragic  muse  whose  grief  is  too  deep  for  tears.  He 
watched  her  as  she  swept  towards  him  in  the  figure 
of  the  dance,  the  head  thrown  back,  slightly  fore 
shortened,  the  mouth  smiling  with  the  smile  that 
knows  all  things,  the  eyes  holy  wells  of  truth.  He 
saw  in  her  something  of  the  tenderness  of  Eve,  for 
all  the  blending  of  the  calm  modern  woman,  capable 
in  affairs,  equal  to  emergency.  It  was  like  her  to 
contrive  her  brother's  escape  and  then  to  dance  with 
the  very  men  who  had  knotted  the  noose  for  his 
hanging.  Henderson  was  bowing  to  her,  the  dance 
was  over,  and  the  next  moment  she  was  alone. 

"Is  it  you,  Peter?"  She  thrust  a  strand  of  hair 
back  from  her  temple.  Her  eyes  rested  on  him  for 
a  moment,  then  wandered,  till  in  their  absent  look 
was  the  rapt  expression  of  the  sleep-walker.  The 
dark-rimmed  eyes  had  in  their  depths  the  quiet  of  a 
conflagration,  and  Peter,  seeing  these  things,  and 
knowing  the  gamut  of  all  her  moods,  saw  that  he 
had  been  mistaken.  She  had  not  come  to  dance  in 
triumph,  in  the  face  of  her  brother's  enemies.  There 
was  no  triumph  in  her  face,  but  white,  consuming 
despair. 

"  Did  you  ask  me  to  dance?"  Again  she  put  back 
the  strand  of  hair.  "Forgive  me  for  being  so 
stupid,  but  I've  kept  post-office  to-day,  and  had  a 
long  ride,  and  I  danced  with  Henderson." 

323 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

He  drew  her  arm  within  his  and  led  the  way  out 
through  the  crowd  of  dancers  to  the  star-strewn  night. 
She  did  not  speak  again,  nor  did  she  seem  to  notice 
that  they  had  left  the  room  with  the  dancers.  She 
turned  her  face  towards  the  lonely  valley,  where  the 
drama  of  her  brother's  passing  had  been  consum 
mated,  and  something  there  was  in  her  look  as  it 
turned  towards  the  hills  that  told  Peter. 

"Tell  me,  Judith,  what  has  happened?" 

For  answer  she  pointed  towards  the  valley.  "  They 
did  it  last  night  at  the  dead  cotton-woods.  Hen 
derson  led  them.  I  could  not  stay  with  Alida. 
I  had  to  come  here  to  dance  that  no  one  might 
suspect." 

Her  voice  was  steady,  but  low  and  thrilling. 
In  its  deep  resonance  was  the  echo  of  all  human 
sorrow.  There  was  no  hint  of  accusation,  yet  Peter 
felt  accused.  He  felt,  now  when  it  was  too  late, 
that  his  position  had  been  one  of  almost  pusillani 
mous  negligence.  From  the  beginning  he  had  taken 
a  firm  stand  against  violent  measures.  He  had 
talked,  argued,  reasoned,  inveighed  against  violence; 
no  later  than  a  week  ago  he  had  ridden  across  the 
desert  to  tell  Henderson  that  the  Wetmore  outfit 
would  take  no  part  in  violence  of  any  sort,  and  that 
the  cattle  outfit  that  did  resort  to  exteme  measures 
would  miss  the  support  of  the  "W-Square"  in  any 
future  range  business.  But  it  had  not  been  enough. 
He  should  have  made  plain  his  position  in  regard  to 
Judith.  With  her  as  his  future  wife  the  tragedy 
of  the  valley  would  not  have  been  possible. 

From  the  ranch -house  came  the  swell  of  the 


THE    BALL 

fiddles,  the  rhythmic  shuffle  of  feet,  the  song  of  the 
dancers,  dulled  by  distance.  Beside  him  was  Judith, 
a  white  spirit,  the  woman  in  her  dead  of  grief.  And 
yet,  through  all  the  grim  horror  of  the  tragedy  she 
remembered  the  part  that  had  been  allotted  to  her, 
threw  all  the  weight  of  her  personality  on  the  side 
of  the  game  she  was  playing. 

"You  must  be  on  our  side,  Peter,  and  when  there 
is  talk  of  Jim's  absence  you  must  imply  that  he  is 
East  somewhere.  You  will  know  how  to  meet  such 
inquiries  better  than  we  women.  Henderson  will 
be  only  too  glad.  You  should  have  seen  the  wretch 
when  I  held  out  my  hand  to  him  and  told  him  to 
dance  with  me.  He  came,  white  and  shambling; 
we  have  nothing  to  fear  from  Henderson.  Alida 
has  no  money  to  go  away  with.  She  and  I  must 
stay  here  and  make  a  beginning  for  the  children, 
and,  Peter,  we  want  you  to  help  us." 

He  had  no  voice  to  answer  her  brave  words  for  a 
minute,  and  then  his  sentences  came  uncertain  and 
halting. 

"  You  must  think  me  a  poor  sort  of  friend,  Judith, 
one  who  has  been  blind  till  the  eleventh  hour  and 
is  then  found  wanting.  I  feel  so  guilty  to  you,  to 
your  brother's  wife,  to  that  little  child  who  put  out 
his  arms  so  trustfully  to  me  that  night,  but  I  never 
imagined  that  things  would  come  to  such  a  pass  as 
this.  The  smaller  cattle  outfits  have  been  doing  a 
good  deal  of  blustering,  but  the  more  conservative 
element  supposed  that  they  had  them  in  check,  and 
did  not  for  a  moment  think  that  they  would  take 
the  law  into  their  own  hands.  Believe  me,  this  law- 

325 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

lessness  has  been  in  the  face  of  every  influence 
that  could  be  brought  to  bear,  and  it  shall  not  go 
unpunished." 

She  spoke  to  him  from  the  darkness,  as  the  spirit 
of  grief  might  speak.  "An  eye  for  an  eye,  a  tooth 
for  a  tooth,  that  is  the  justice  of  the  plains.  But, 
Peter,  it  is  but  poor  justice.  What's  done  is  done, 
and  fresh  violence  will  not  give  back  Alida  her 
husband  nor  the  little  ones  their  father.  What  we 
need  is  friends,  one  or  two  loyal  souls  who,  though 
knowing  the  hideous  truth  of  this  thing,  will  stand 
by  us  in  our  pitiful  falsehood.  I  have  told  no  one, 
nor  shall  I,  but  you  and — Peter,  you  must  not  laugh 
at  your  fellow-conspirator — Leander." 

He  took  her  hands  in  his  and  pressed  them;  big 
hands  they  were,  and  hardened  by  many  a  homely 
task,  but  withal  tender  and  with  the  healing  quality 
of  womanliness  in  the  touch  of  their  warm,  supple 
fingers.  But  to-night  she  did  not  seem  to  know  that 
he  held  them,  nor  to  be  conscious  of  his  presence. 
The  woman  in  her  was  dead  of  grief.  The  white 
spirit  in  her  place,  that  plotted  and  planned  that 
Jim's  children  and  Jim's  wife  might  not  from  hence 
forth  walk  in  the  shadow  of  the  gallows,  was  beyond 
the  prompting  of  the  flesh.  And  again  she  spoke 
to  him  in  the  same  far-away  voice,  with  the  same 
far-away  look  in  her  eyes. 

"You  must  know,  Peter,  that  Leander  is  at  heart 
of  the  salt  of  the  earth.  I  told  him  about  it  all,  and 
he  asked  to  be  given  the  commission  to  deal  with  the 
men.  He  has  risen  to  his  post  magnificently.  I 
heard  him  swear  the  wretches  to  secrecy,  hint  to 

326 


THE    BALL 

them  that  he  had  a  great  story  to  tell  them.  They 
were  frightened,  and  listened.  And  the  poor  little 
man  that  we  have  so  despised  told  them  convincing 
ly  how  Jim  had  made  good  his  escape — even  Hen 
derson  half  believes  we  saved  him." 

Peter  hoped  that  she  would  accuse  him  of  his  half- 
heartedness  indirectly,  if  not  openly.  It  would 
have  made  his  conscience  more  comfortable,  and  his 
conscience  troubled  him  sorely  to-night.  It  was 
that  fatal  habit  of  procrastination  that  had  brought 
this  thing  about.  He  had  hesitated  all  these  weeks 
about  Judith,  and  while  he  had  threshed  out  the 
pro  and  con  of  her  disadvantageous  family  con 
nection,  this  hideous  tragedy  had  happened. 

"Peter" — and  now  her  eyes  seemed  to  come  back 
to  earth  again,  to  lose  something  of  the  far-away  look 
of  the  sleep-walker — "Peter,  I'm  cruel  to  speak  to 
you  of  these  things  now.  When  your  heart  is  full 
of  your  own  happiness,  I  come  to  you  like  a  dark 
shadow  with  this  tragedy.  But  I  am  glad  for  the 
good  that  has  come  to  you,  Peter.  Perhaps  Miss 
Colebrooke  told  you  of  the  day  I  met  her  in  the 
wood,  the  day  of  the  wolf -hunt.  She  was  so 
beautiful,  I  understood — " 

"Judith,  I  hardly  know  how  to  say  what  I  am 
going  to,  I  feel  that  I  have  been  such  a  bad  friend 
to  you,  but  you  must  hear  me  patiently.  Together, 
if  you  are  willing,  after  knowing  all  of  me  that  you 
do,  we  must  look  after  your  brother's  children. 
That  night  in  the  little  house  in  the  valley,  when 
the  little  chap  came  to  me,  don't  you  remember, 
there  was  something  fine  and  fearless  in  the  way 

327 


JUDITH   OF   THE   PLAINS 

he  did  it.  'You  may  belong  to  the  cattle  side  of 
the  argument,'  he  seemed  to  say,  'but  I  trust  you.' 
Now,  Judith  dear,  that  boy's  faith  in  me  is  not 
going  to  be  shaken.  We  must  look  after  them 
together.  It  is  a  very  little  thing  you  have  asked 
of  me,  my  dearest,  but  a  very  big  one  that  I  am 
asking  of  you.  Do  you  understand,  my  Judith, 
it  is  you  that  I  want?  Don't  think  of  me  as  I  have 
been,  Judith,  but  as  you  are  going  to  make  me.  I 
want  you  to  give  me  the  right  now,  this  evening, 
to  share  all  this  trouble  with  you.  Do  we  un 
derstand  each  other,  Judith  ?  Is  it  to  be  ?  And 
will  you  come  back  with  me  now,  into  the  room 
where  they  are  dancing,  and  let  me  present  you  to 
them,  to  the  Wet  mores,  as  my  Judith,  my  be 
trothed?" 

"But,  Peter,  I  don't  understand.  I — I  thought 
you  and  Miss  Colebrooke  were — " 

"That's  all  over,  Judith.  I  did  love  her  once. 
Oh,  you  dear,  brave  woman,  I'm  not  a  hero  from  any 
point  of  view,  and  you  know  it.  It's  but  a  sorry 
lover  that's  making  his  prayer  to  you,  my  dearest; 
but  you  won't  judge,  I  know,  beloved,  you  will 
love  me  instead?" 

Judith  turned  towards  the  valley.  Her  whole 
being  throbbed  with  a  passionate  response  to  the 
man  who  stood  so  humbly  before  her,  but  there 
were  duties  that  came  first.  Her  mind  was  full  of 
Alida  and  her  children,  and  her  eyes  still  sought 
Peter's  imploringly. 

"You  will  be  a  good  friend  to  them,  Peter — to 
Jim's  people?  I  cannot  talk  to  you  of  anything 

328 


THE    BALL 

else  to-night.  Your  heart  is  big,  Peter,  but  you 
cannot  feel,  perhaps — " 

"Listen,  Judith.  Whatever  friendship  and  pro 
tection  I  can  give  your  family  you  may  count 
upon  from  now  till  the  end  of  time.  I  will  be  theirs 
as  I  am  yours.  I  feel  your  grief,  but  I  want  to 
soothe  it,  too.  And  if  you  love  me,  and  I  feel, 
Judith,  that  you  do,  you  must  let  them  all  see  to 
night,  these  people  who  know  us  both,  that  we 
stand  together  before  all  the  world  for  better  or 
worse.  Think,  Judith,  and  you  will  see  that  you 
owe  it  to  yourself,  to  me,  to  all  these  men,  who 
reverence  you  as  the  one  woman,  the  one  ideal  in 
their  lonely  lives." 

She  could  not  speak.  The  moment  was  too  full, 
the  strain  had  been  too  great;  but  she  smiled 
surrender,  and  Peter  caught  her  tenderly  in  his 
arms  and  kissed  her  once  —  his  Judith  she  was 
now,  his  heroine.  Then,  without  another  word, 
he  drew  her  arm  through  his  and  led  her  back  to 
the  lights,  where  the  dancers  still  held  high  car 
nival. 

Judith's  half-sister,  Eudora,  was  making  a  pretty 
quarrel  by  perversely  forgetting  the  order  in  which 
she  had  given  her  dances.  The  girl  was  so  undeni 
ably  happy  that  Judith  dreaded  the  grim  news  she 
must  tell  her.  Eudora  blushed  as  she  encountered 
Judith's  eye.  Her  half-sister  ever  offered  a  check 
on  Eudora's  exuberant  coquetry,  with  its  precip 
itation  of  discussions  that  often  ended  in  bullets. 
Leander  stood  on  the  outermost  fringe  of  Eudora's 
potential  partners.  He  would  not  have  dared  to 

329 


JUDITH    OF    THE    PLAINS 

maintain  it  openly,  yet  he  was  sure  the  pretty  minx 
had  promised  that  dance  to  him. 

"Dance  with  Leander,  dear,  and  don't  let  those 
men  begin  quarrelling.  I've  something  to  tell  you, 
presently,"  said  Judith. 

Texas  Tyler  stood  glowering  at  them  from  the 
doorway.  He  would  not  catch  Judith's  eye  as  she 
tried  to  speak  to  him.  Kitty  sat  alone  for  the 
moment.  She  had  sent  the  young  lieutenant  to 
fetch  her  a  cup  of  coffee,  but  as  Peter  approached 
with  Judith  she  averted  her  eyes. 

"Kitty,  may  I  present  to  you  my  fiancee,  Miss 
Rodney?" 

Kitty  rose  superbly  to  the  situation.  She  might, 
indeed,  have  made  the  match  she  was  so  overjoyed 
in  the  good-fortune  of  her  old  friend  Peter.  She 
made  no  reference  to  the  woodland  meeting — she 
hoped  for  the  happiness  of  seeing  them  in  town. 
And  she  bade  Peter  tell  the  good  news  to  Nannie 
Wetmore,  they  would  be  so  glad.  Nannie  swallow 
ed  a  grimace  and  proffered  a  cousinly  hand.  She 
had  suspected  some  such  news  as  this  when  she  saw 
that  things  were  not  going  well  with  Kitty  and 
Peter. 

"Better  one  dance  with  a  good  partner  that  can 
swing  ye  than  several  with  a  feeble  partner  that 
leaves  ye  to  swing  your  own  corners!" 

Judith  looked  up,  smiling.  She  recognized  the 
characteristic  utterance  of  her  old  friend  Mrs. 
Yellett.  The  matriarch  had  sustained  a  breakdown, 
and  arrived,  in  consequence,  when  the  dance  was 
half  over,  but  she  was  philosophical,  as  always,  in 

330 


THE    BALL 

the  face  of  misfortune,  and  loudly  attested  hei 
pleasure  in  the  renowned  pedal  feats  of  her  partner, 
Costigan. 

Behind  came  Mary  Carmichael,  looking  brown 
and  happy.  From  the  attitude  of  the  group  around 
Judith  and  Peter  Mary  divined  what  had  happened, 
and  came  to  add  her  congratulations.  Even  Mrs. 
Yellett  forgot  to  choose  an  axiom  as  her  me 
dium  of  expression,  and  kissed  Judith  publicly,  with 
affectionate  unction.  Henderson  had  effaced  him 
self,  and  Leander,  proud  of  his  triumph  and  Judith's 
commendation,  sat  in  a  corner  and  smiled  content 
edly.  Ignorant  of  the  drama  to  which  they  had 
played  chorus,  the  dancers  still  riotously  swung  one 
another  up  and  down  the  length  of  the  room,  and 
from  the  little  brown  fiddles  came  the  gay  music 
of  Judith's  betrothal. 


THE    END 


M18921 


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